July 22nd in China, Beach volleyball and a Bible study!

I got up early today because Whitney and I were going to try out a new place we had heard of on campus that makes french toast and fried eggs for breakfast. We started to head out to breakfast when we ran into Leslie and we invited her to go with us. We had to wait for Leslie because she was going to pay a guy for some Olympic tickets and would be right back. When she got back we got to talking and she actually had 1 more ticket for the Semi-Finals of Beach Volleyball, so I bought the extra ticket off her.
Breakfast was great, I bought 2 pieces of french toast, 1 fried egg and a cup of coffee for 9 Yuan, which is like 1.33 USD. After breakfast I came back to the room and actually went back to bed and took a small nap. After a half hour snooze I got up and gathered my books, my computer, my bible and my laundry. I dropped off my laundry at the laundromat then headed to Water Stone Coffee (a great little cafe on campus) and sat up shop to relax and get some stuff done. While I sat there I ordered a iced coffee, then a bubble tea while I read my bible and eventually had a tuna sandwich for lunch. I sat at Water Stone for about 4 hours and while I was there I enjoyed more than just a couple glasses of coffee and tea, I was able to witness something really terrific. As I sat at my corner table I couldn't help but overhear a couple of boys about my age, witnessing to a couple older Chinese gentlemen. Then 2 boys that were sharing their faith were both from New York as I found out later. It was refreshing to hear them tell these other guys their stories and to tell them about God and Jesus. I listened to most of their conversation and it was just nice to hear someone talk about the Holy Spirit. Sometimes I feel like I am not getting enough to feed me spiritually here in China. So I like the moments when I can talk about Jesus, or hear about him. After these young men got up from their coffee I stopped them and just told them I appreciated what they were doing. I shared my support and encouragement and told them if they had a bible study or anything here that I would love to join. They told me they were actually only here for 1 more week but it was still nice to meet them. After they left I read in my bible a little more and then packed up my stuff to head back to the hotel. I went back to the and just chilled and watched the movie "The Happening" and also found the "Dark Knight" on the internet. They don't have it in theaters here but it was on the internet. After that I got some sleep because the next day was when I got to visit the ending site for the cycling event that I am working.

July 21st in China, Business cards and a day with Allie!

I woke up first ready to set my mind to creating something I had planned on making for a few months. You see my friend Nichole is getting married while I am away from the U.S. so I wanted to make her and Clay a video to play at their reception since I wont be there. That task took me quite a bit of time, but I think it really turned out great. :) After I made the video I got hold of my friend Allie, then her and I headed out to find a Kinkos where I could get some business cards made. Our cab driver was retarded and dropped us off about 10 blocks away from where we needed to be, so we had a little adventure trying to find the store. We just kept stopping people and showing them the paper with the Kinkos address written on it in Chinese. We eventually found the store and funny enough ran into 2 other people from our group. Sarah and Matt, apparently they were there to ship a package but found out you need your passport to do so. So the other girl that was with them took a cab back to the hotel to get their passports. One problem though, she couldn't find Sarah's passport anywhere. So they had been there for about an hour while the other girl searched for Sarah's passport when all of a sudden Sarah asked to see the package she was shipping, and when she opened the box (which was full of purses and clothes) she found her passport INSIDE one of the bags she was about to ship to the USA. Good thing they asked for her passport in the first place or she may have not realized that she mailed it to the US before it was too late. So after witnessing that little adventure I was able to get some business cards made. I had to use a template that KOMU has ready for reporters so it was an easy process. The guy just had to load the template from my zip drive and then add my information. It was really cheap too! I got 100 colored business cards for 100 Yuan, which is like 15 dollars in America. So that was cool, Allie ended up not getting her cards because they were going to charge her 20 USD just to design them. So instead she decided to just design them herself back at the hotel and come back to Kinkos another day when she was ready to print them. We grabbed a cab outside Kinkos and headed back toward campus. Before we went to the hotel however we stopped at the grocery store that is right next to the University. I was able to buy some pasta and pasta sauce, that I am going to try cooking in the water boiler in our hotel rooms. I also bought some peanut butter, a plate, a bowl and a fork so I was set! After the grocery store I came back to the room, put my stuff away and then Allie and I headed to a canteen on campus where we split an order of spring rolls and some Kung pao chicken. It was pretty great. After dinner I headed back to the room to search around to get some information about Olympic tickets and to send out a few e-mails and things online. I also watched the movie "Made of Honor" and then decided to walk to McDonalds for a late night snack. After I got back I watched part of "Sweet Home Alabama" and went to bed.

July 20th in China, THE FLYING CHINESE ACROBATS!!!

Sunday I woke up and was able to talk to Micah for quite some time. Then he was able to figure out how to download Skype and he and I were able to call each other through our computers. It was fun, and I also got to see him because he has a webcam. After chatting with him I ate a jelly sandwich and then watched the movie Wall-E. After I watched the movie, which is so cute and one of my favorites (I saw it in theaters before I left the states, I started to get ready because our group had tickets to go to the Flying Acrobats Show. We rented a bus to take us to the theater and we arrived there about an hour early. So we had a chance to go get some food before hand if we wanted to. So Whitney, Allie, Eric, Dan and I decided to take a walk to go look for some food. We walked down a residential area and ended up finding some food from a local vendor. Whitney and I split a sort of beef quesadilla thing before the show. We walked back to the theater just in time to be seated. The show was amazing, It was theatrical, so there were laser shows, lights, colorful costumes, music, live birds, cool special effects with the stage either having the middle drop out, or having things raise out of the center. IT WAS SO COOL! The whole show was an incredible display of strength, flexibility, grace, aero-stunts, and acrobatic skills. So cool. I loved it so much that I could not describe how amazing it is! YOU MUST SEE THIS SHOW, if ever you are in Beijing, call me up, I will give you the name of the theater! HAHA! Some of the highlights were bike tricks, where at the end there were about 25 women balancing on one bike, another lady was so flexible she sat on her own head! Yes that is what I said. haha, Another cool stunt was where these two men brought out this huge structure that looked like a sort of ferris wheel thing with only 2 round hamster like wheels on either side opposite of each other. The guys ran inside these rings while the entire thing spun around! I will have to add a picture to show this.

It was so cool. I was so thrilled to get to see this show, after about 40 mins the curtain dropped and we all were like! NO!! it can't be done yet...haha it was just a 10 min. intermission though so that was good. I went and bought some popcorn and then headed back in to watch the show. The finale was a combination of all kinds of tricks, constumes, live parrots flying around and of course drums and music! I was blown away by this show! After the show was over I got ready for bed and watched Indianna Jones to put myself to sleep.

July 19th in China, 6 MONTHS with Micah and a little shopping! :D

Well I woke up and immediately went to my facebook to wish my boyfriend a happy 6th month anniversary! haha! Half a year has gone so fast! Then I had to go down to go downstairs to meet a reporter from a local paper for an interview. He did I story on me because I am a foreign volunteer. After that I decided to call my family. I called my mom and dad and talked to them until I ran out of minutes! When mom picked up the phone first however, I said, "quick hand it to dad for a second!" As dad said hello I quoted one of our favorites movies to him to make him laugh! haha Just in case you were wondering, the movie is "The Golden Child", with Eddie Murphy. So it was fun to talk to my parents, and then after the phone card ran out of minutes I was able to talk to my mother on AOL messenger. Which was a funny experience, she took a little bit to sign on, and even longer to figure out how to answer what I was typing to her. But she caught on pretty well, except I think my fast typing and replying kind of made her nervous! haha
After my chat with mom I got a call from my friend Whitney asking me to join her for some Pizza at Pizza Hut. Even though I had just ate there the day before I was still ready for some good ol' pizza! We walked to Pizza Hut and chatted, and we spilt a pepperoni pizza and an order of chicken wings (which were magically by the way haha) after our dinner we sat there drinking our tea and decided what the heck, let's get some cake too! However it was disappointing. Oh well, can't have a good pizza, amazing sweet tea and terrific cake all in one place I guess. After lunch I headed to the hotel and was stop in the lobby by my teacher Mr. Powell, who wanted to know how my interview with the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper had went earlier. While I was talking with Larry a couple girls from our group, Elle and Jashin, walked up. After talking a bit with the girls we headed out to get on the subway and went to the Yashow Market, where we got some clothes, and dvds that were like 1.40 USD. It was fun to go out on an adventure and just do a little shopping. We also stopped by the brand new Apple store, that had just opened earlier that day. It was cool and neat to see the grand opening.
We ended up running into another guy from our group at the Market, Matt. So Matt joined us and we all ate at the food court at the Yashow market where I had sweet and sour shrimp that was awesome! :) We headed back to the hotel via the BRAND NEW SUBWAY! Yeah forgot to mention that earlier, the subway line we took getting to and from the market was just opened that morning so we were some of the first people to ever ride on it.
Once we got back to the Hotel the girls and I watched Hancock in my room and drank some tea. It was late when the movie was over so then we called it a night.

July 18th in China, Meeting new people-Amber and then some Aussies!

I woke up and kind of felt like taking a little time to myself this day. I went to Pizza Hut by myself where I sat and ate a 9 inch pepperoni pizza and drank some nice good ol' iced sweet tea. It was rather relaxing and I enjoyed just taking my time and being on my own for a little change. After enjoying my quiet meal I headed back to the hotel and filled out a few postcards and headed out to find a cab to take me to the post office. I had a piece of paper with post office written in chinese on it. I must have approached 3 or 4 different taxi drivers and none of them would help me. They just kept waving me off, so I was a bit discouraged. Luckily next to the west gate, which is where the cabs are always waiting, there is a olympic volunteer host booth where locals can volunteer to be a representative of Beijing and show hospitality to visitors. So I walked up to the group of volunteers that were hanging around the booth and asked about the post office. One of them actually walked me completely across campus to the Post office. Her names was Amber, she is a chinese girl my age but is not originally from Beijing. She is here studying literature. She and I had a pretty good conversation, I was very impressed with her English and she apparently was very impressed by my pale skin, saying, "You are very beautiful." HAHA here in China the whiter you are the better. LOL After we got to the post office I traded my phone number with Amber because she said that her and a group of friends get together every week a few times a week to play volleyball and I had told her that I played. So I was excited to make a new friend. :) Hopefully I will get to join in on a game of volleyball. After she left I went into the Post Office and was able to mail off 7 postard for 31.5 yuan which is like 4.60 USD. After I left the post office I was able to find my way back to the hotel with no problems and I stopped to get myself a cold coca-cola on the way. When I got back to the hotel room I had an idea, because the day before I found out I would only be working for part of the games until cycling was over and then I am done. So I had an idea to try and contact the coaches and PR people for the USA baseball team. I have worked the past few years as a coaches assistant to the MU coaches so I thought why not try? What could it hurt?? So I e-mailed all my bosses at MU as well as a few sports broadcasters that I know and I also was able to find the e-mail of a USA assistant coach and the team's PR guy. It was worth a shot. After sending out those e-mails I got ready to go out with Allie because I ran into her while on the way back from the post office and she invited me to come to a get together that was with all the Aussies and people that Allie is going to be working with in the water cube. it was fun, I had nothing to wear so my roomie let me wear some of her clothes and we got ready and caught a cab to head to the pub where the get together was. I met several people from Australia as well as Allie's boss. It was fun to chat and mingle and hang out with everyone but I was getting tired around midnight so Allie, Whitney and I took a cab home. The only problem was the cab driver didn't understand us and instead of dropping us off at the West gate of Renmin University, he dropped us off at the East gate. But we thought it was fine, we could just walk across campus. We failed however to realize that the driver also dropped us off on the wrong side of the road and there are like chest high fences between the traffic lanes...haha. So umm instead of walking the 3 blocks or so to get around the fence we all decided to climb over the fence. I was fine until my foot got caught and then I fell in a rose bush. Whitney also fell over the top of the fence, but its ok, I was there to break her fall! haha Eventually we all made it over and headed into the East Gate. We stopped to buy some grilled chicken kabobs from a street vendor and then walked to the hotel. I was pretty beat so I talked to Micah a little bit (because it was technically the 19th, which is our 6 month marker of being together) and after chatting with im I pretty much konked out. lol

July 17th in China, First day of training and Hot Pot!

We met in the lobby and waited for our leaders. Because I didn't have much time I just bought some muffins and a coke from the small store in the lobby for my breakfast. After Winslet (that is our chinese leader's english name) got to the hotel we headed out to the training venue. We walked to the east gate and waited for our bus there. We all just barely made it onto the bus we needed, which was a double decker bus. I ended up seating on like the steel storage thing in the back, because there were not enough seats, but at least I was on the top deck and the window was open next to me so I had a great breeze. But about half way through our trip the bus actually broke down! It was kind of funny, the bus stopped running in the middle of the street and we all had to get off, and others had to push the bus out of the way. Well because we were already running late our leaders loaded our cycling group, there is about 12 of us, into cabs and we headed back on our way to the training facility. We finally arrived at the starting point of the cycling event when is where we trained. We were shown several powerpoints, and given a couple lectures in the few hours we trained. To be honest, it was kind of boring. Then we were given a break and most of us headed to the small shop in the facility, to get ice cream. Then the power points and lectures started again. I think most of the stuff we were shown or told was kind of pointless, because we had either heard it before or it was something we didn't need to know. After a little bit longer the chinese student volunteers brought us all in another ice cream bar which was really nice of them. My ice cream bar was good, until I bit into a grape. Yes, a grape, a grape was frozen in my popsicle. It was so weird! First I had pizza the week before at Water Stone and the pizza has raisins on it and now I had an ice cream bar with grapes in it! Very odd. But anyways, after another hour of pointlessness we were finally done with training. Before we got to go though we had to pick up our uniforms, which was the highlight of my day. We have fully issued uniforms, consisting of 3 shirts, 2 pairs of pants that zip off to shorts, 3 pairs of socks, a hat, a jacket, a fanny pack (yes, a fanny pack haha), a water bottle and my favorite item brand new adidas sneakers. The shoes are actually really cool, and all our stuff is adidas and all of it has the official Beijing 2008 Olympic Logo on it! Yes, even the shoes! It is pretty cool. We tried the sizes of stuff on the very first week we were here and I double checked to make sure the girl wrote my stuff down right, but they still didnt get my order right. Everything fit except my shirts and jacket. They gave me larges instead of smalls. So I don't have my work shirts yet. After we all got our uniforms we were walked to the official starting point right near the building we had our training. It was pretty cool, it starts almost right at the temple of Heaven. We were shown around a bit and then told we were free to go. A few of us decided we were starving since the most we had had to eat was ice cream, so we all asked the leaders where we could find a restaurant nearby. This took a lot of effort because no one could think of a place or agree on a place to tell us. So while our group stood around waiting for our leaders to answer, this one man who was a street vendor selling kites, came up and started pushing the end of the kite rope into one of the boys in our groups hands. It was funny actually, this vendor was set on trying to sell this kite to Zach. Finally one of the leaders volunteered to take us to eat. We walked for what seemed like 15-20 minutes until we got to this hot pot restaurant that apparently is a favorite of the locals. We waited outside for our number to be called and in the meantime we sat and got to know our chinese student leader who led us to the restaurant, Frank is his english name. Frank was an interesting guy. We finally were led into the restaurant and given our own table. The hot pot is in the middle of the table and it is full of water that is seasoned and you just order the dishes you want raw and then boil it in the hot pot before eating it. We were also given bowls of sesame and ginger sauce (at least I think that is what it was) and that was what you were to dip the stuff in after you cooked it in the hot pot. We ordered noodles, potatoes, mutton, beef, crab, and several other dishes. It was ok, I liked the food but I don't think I would do it again. For one because it took so long, we were there for almost 2 hours and for 2 because I didn't get full on this stuff. It was a neat experience but I didn't like it enough to want to go back. After hot pot we got in the cabs and headed home. Leslie, Eric and I got in a cab with a hilarious driver. He was playing american music when we got in, Shawn Kingston, and he was practicing his english the entire time. The music was refreshing to hear actually, just because we hadn't heard any radio for a bit. A Nelly song came on and then the funniest thing happened, Michael Jackson's song "Beat it" started to play. Our cabbie said, "I like Michael Jackson" and then started to like speed and whip through traffic. He was totally getting into the music and it was cracking us up! Finally we got back to the hotel after this extremely long day. I was wiped out so I hit the hay not long after.

July 16th in China, I found an English show on tv...and it was about Jesus!!!

This was my last day off before I began my training, so I tried to blog a little and get all the pictures updated on my facebook. Whitney called me and asked if I wanted to go get some lunch at McDonalds, so I headed out on a walk with her to the nearest one. After I got back I watched some tv, and messed around on the computer. To my surprise I found an english speaking television show. This is rare, and what was even rarer was the fact that the show was all about Jesus. Christianity isn't really allowed in China so I found this to be really interesting. I watched the hour long show and it really made me feel good. The show had chinese subtitles and instead of being a show that was criticizing Christianity it was actually more of a show to prove it and inspire it. I found this to be a great blessing and a bit refreshing. After that I didn't really feel very well so I didn't eat anything for supper. I cleaned and chatted a bit with Micah and then headed to bed to get plenty of rest for my first day of training.

July 15th in China, Hard Rock Cafe!

I had another break day this day because I am working the cycling event and our training hadn't begun yet. Some of my friends however weren't as lucky. So I slept in a little bit too and then headed over to the laundromat to pick up my laundry. When I got back and got cleaned up my roomie and I decided to go find some dinner. We were trying to find a new restaurant but we were so hungry that we just ended up walking to the restaurant on campus called Water Stone Coffee. I had ate there once before and it was pretty good. I was able to go eat with Blair because she and I are both working cycling. I had already tried the pizza there so Blair decided to try it, I on the other hand tried the seafood pasta. It was excellent, it had scallops, oysters and shrimp in it. After lunch I read a little bit and cleaned my room. Then I got a phone call from one of the girls saying that some people were going to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner, so I was pumped to go. I had been wanting to check that place out and get a shirt, and I thought I could handle one more American meal. :) So we all headed out and took 2 cabs from the hotel. We were meeting other people there but they were not leaving from the hotel. Well our cab driver dropped us off about 4 blocks out of the way and we had to walk and ask several people for directions before we finally made it to the restaurant. It was a nice place, smaller than some of the Hard Rocks I have seen, but still the same decor and atmosphere that the chain is known for. We got to enjoy live music as well as a few classic rock songs! I decided to splurge a little and get myself a sirloin steak, mashed potatoes and broccoli. It was AMAZING! haha I had been craving some good ol' red meat! lol After dinner I did a little shopping at the store to get myself a shirt. I got a few pictures also. I headed back to the hotel to get some stuff done and hit the hay. I had one one free day until training began!

July 14th in China, KFC and pizza! haha!

I made sure to sleep in today because I was so exhausted from the three previous days of non-stop touring. I eventually got up and took a load of laundry over to be washed. I also decided that it was time to take a break from the chinese food and find something American, so I decided to walk to the KFC that is just down the road from the University. It was easy to order because I just had to point at the menu and OH MY GOSH, the spicy wing meal really hit the spot! HAHA I enjoyed a lazy weekend, uploading pictures, reading, talking on the internet and watching some movies. Around dinner time my friends Whitney and Leslie called me and asked if I wanted to pitch in and join them for pizza. So we had a Papa John's pizza delivered to the hotel. It wasn't quite as good as the pizza from the states but heck it was still really good. I really enjoyed having a day with nothing but american food for my meals! After dinner I came back to the room and Blair, Quinn and I all sat around and watched "Memoirs of a Geisha", on Blair's computer. Even though it is Japanese we still found it resembled some of China. So as you can see this was a rather slow day, but I think it is just what I needed!

July 13th in China, Summer Palace and a Peking Opera

We loaded up on the buses for our last day of touring with BOCOG. Our first stop was the Summer Palace. We made our way through the gate and it was so amazing at the first view, because you look out over the lake and you can see a couple bridges, a couple temples and the palace across the lake. I took several pictures here and was able to also find some interesting people. One elderly man was sitting by the lake with a loaf of bread, feeding the fish. It was so cute. Another couple of kids were enjoying popsicles. It was just a great place and everything was so nice. Our group walked around and we were all able to enjoy the sights, eat some ice cream, and enjoy the people. I was actually interviewed by one of the television crews that was following us around that day, so that was neat too. Our group took a walk down the longest corridor there, it has actually been in the Guiness Book of World Records. After our tour guide told us the history of the summer palace and the corridor we were able to take an hour to do our own thing. I went out on the lake on one of the dragon boats with a couple other people from our group.
It was so pretty and I was able to take pics and lots of video from there. I also sat and talked to a young chinese girl and she showed me her chinese barbie doll, which I took a picture of. After our boat ride I made my way toward the historic Marble boat which was also near a souvenir shop. I walked around the shop and after looking at the odds and ends it was time to meet the rest of the group. We were able to enjoy a nice lunch in a restaurant that is actually a historic part of the Summer Palace estate. It was a good lunch and we were able to relax before leaving and hitting the road on our way to Yuan Ming Yuan park. It was at one time known as the "Garden of Gardens" in China until it was destroyed, today the ruins are all that remain. From what I saw it must have been a very beautiful place, there were many stone carvings, stone structures, places where fountains once where... one thing that is still standing however is a temple in the middle of a huge maze. It was apparently used for a game with lanterns. The emperor would sit in the temple/gazebo stone structure in the middle and all his "ladies" would be let go into the maze, each carrying a lantern. This way the king could see where they were and watch and enjoy as they all tried to be the first one to reach him. After I walked around and photographed the ruins I walked to another part of the park, the lake, where they were having a huge locust display. The flowers were so pretty, and dragonflies were everywhere. After we left the park we were escorted to dinner, which is where we had this delicious soup served to us, that tasted like cream corn. LOL And because I was craving some familiar American tasting food, I ate the heck out of that soup! haha! After dinner we drove to the theater and were seated to watch a traditional Peking Opera. The costumes were cool, the show was colorful and was not too hard to follow because there was a screen with english subtitles translating the opera. It was an interesting experience and I was happy to have seen it. After the opera we headed back to the hotel and I was ready for the next day which was a free day! :)

July 12th in China, THE GREAT WALL and the Ming tombs underground palace!

I woke early this day and made sure all my cameras were charged, and that I had all my camera cards. I was pumped to get to see the Great Wall of CHina. I fixed my hair instead of wearing my usual hat because I had plans to take many pictures and wanted to look nice, haha. So our group met in the lobby and we loaded on the buses to head to Badaling, one of the most visited parts of the Great Wall. We rode on the bus for about an hour and finally arrived. I got really excited as we approached because from the bus you could catch glimpses of the wall here and there! We got lucky too, this day turned out to be a clear beautiful day with no smog! So we could see very well and the pictures would turn out great, the only problem is that it would be so much hotter! I made sure to put on sunscreen, use the restroom and also purchase some sunglasses in the parking lot so that I was ready for my hike up the wall. The chinese guide informed us that Mao once said you are not a hero unless you conquer the wall. So we were all going to try our luck at being a hero! :D We started to walk toward the entrance that would allow us to climb up onto the wall, but we an into an obstacle. We were stopped by a guard and told to wait, little did we know at the moment that is was because the president of Mexico and his family were visiting the Great Wall on the same day! But because of security no one knew to expect him until like 10 mins before he got there. So here we all are standing on the sidewalk with like a thousand other visitors and we have to watch as about 10 cars drive past us and right up through the gate to the wall. We had to wait about 45 mins for the president to be done with his visit before we were cleared to go on the wall. While we were waiting it was hot, we were packed so tightly, and because all the chinese women carry umbrellas I dont know how many times I was poked with the edge of an umbrella! Good thing I bought the sunglasses they were more of a shield from umbrellas then from the sun for my poor eyes! haha! Finally we were allowed to start making our way through the gate up onto the wall, the only thing is the "gateway" that led to the inside part with stairs up onto the wall was barely bigger than the size of a house's front door. So we were funneling all these people through this small entrance! It was awful! Finally though our group made it through and I was able to set foot on the Great Wall of China. it was crowded but still very awesome. I shot a video on the wall and then started my trek up the wall. I stopped here and there to get several pictures of the wall, the crowd, the surroundings and also of the Beijing Olympic games sign that was up on a mountain next to the wall, sort of how the Hollywood sign is. I made it to the highest part of the wall where we were and I was able to buy a shirt on the wall that says, "I have climbed the Great Wall" and it has a cool picture of it on there. Then I was able to get my picture taken on this cliff/rock that juts out of the ground near the highest tower, it is called "Hero Rock". So I suppose my climb made me a hero. HAHA. Another thing I found really interesting was the carvings on the wall. People have carved their names (I assume their names) as well as other things into the rock on the Great Wall, I thought it looked cool however, because it is all in Chinese. I made my way down to meet the group at the check point and to load onto the buses. It was a bit of relief to get back on the bus for a bit because it WAS really hot outside but so worth it! We ate lunch at a local restaurant that served more of the Southern China style food. Which is really close to American style chinese food, so I liked this lunch quite a bit. The restaurant was also near a factory where they make the cloisonne jewelry. Which is a traditional type of jewelry and decoration used throughout China and the world. I learned all about the Cloisonne style in my art history class so it was neat to hear about its history here in China. After lunch we got back on our buses and headed toward part of the Ming tombs. There are several parts and the part we visited was the underground palace. It is a vast burial chamber and crypt like area underground. It had several huge rooms and hallways and was the burial place of the emperor Wanli. We were allowed to tour the underground palace as well as the surrounding relics. There is even a museum there with some of the relics and treasures that were discovered when this tomb was excavated. I found it extremely interesting to view all these things and to actually have seen the spot where they were found. (I am kind of an archaeology nerd). After the tombs we headed back to downtown Beijing to enjoy our dinner. We ate at a place near the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube so that was cool to see. Also the place we ate at was very cool, it was a restaurant underground and during the meal dancers and performers sang or danced traditional dances of the China minorities in full costume. It was really cool, I was able to get some video there but pictures didn't come out because of the lighting. We headed home after that and i did my usual routine of checking the internet, talking to Micah, and getting ready for bed because the next day was the last day of the touring that was set up for us by BOCOG. We were going to visit the Summer Palace and get to see a Peking Opera!

July 11th in China, Tour of the water plant and a Beijing Suburb!!

We got up early this day to get read for our first day of touring that was set up by BOCOG (The organization we are working for). Our first day started out as we arrived at the Beijing Water Treatment plant. It wasn't the most exciting of tours but we still got to see that Beijing is working on improving the city and all that. After the water treatment plant we headed to lunch, it was pretty good, it was about the same as every place we go to. They serve several dishes all in family style. After lunch, Matt, Mark, Allie, Whitney and I all headed across the street to get some ice cream. I wasn't feeling too good so I just got a soda and then got back on the bus to try and sleep a little bit. At about 1:30 (we had an hour or so break for lunch) we were met by police cars that escorted our buses out of Beijing. They blocked the roads and everything so that our buses didn't get separated. We drove out into the country for what seemed like forever. It was actually almost a 2 hour bus ride to get out to a new Beijing village. It is a modern suburb like village that is like a test site to see if the living conditions are favorable and to see if people enjoy the new homes and area. The government hopes to make every village like this one eventually. it was pretty nice though. It had a country club next to it, with a really fancy golf course. It is also located in the mountains so the area is beautiful. There are many 3 sided courtyard houses here, that are similar to the Hutongs that we visited at the beginning of our stay here in China. All the buses stopped for a bathroom break after we drove around the country club. This break was hectic because there were only about 300 STUDENTS on all the buses! HAHAHA So it was a long and crazy break, but after we all got back on the buses we were led to one of the courtyard home sites and each group was able to visit one of the new homes. They were ok, not super fancy but nice. They were all connected too, as you will see in my pictures when I get them up. After we left the homes we went to see a newer temple that had been constructed for worship for the people of this new more modern village. It was pretty cool, set in the mountains, numerous fountains and was made to look like the old traditional buildings and temples such as the ones seen in the Forbidden City. Also next to the temple were some more homes only these new homes were more upscale and apparently were owned by a couple of celebrities. The set of houses actually reminded me of San Fransico and so was deemed Chan Fransico. haha! After we visited the temple we were led to another part of the "New Village", here we got to witness people practicing Tai Chi in one of the courtyards it was pretty cool. They are very graceful and then they invited people from our group to join in. Our professor Larry was probably the funniest haha, just for the mere fact that he was like 2 feet taller than everyone else doing the Tai Chi, considering the group doing the tai chi were senior citizen chinese people! HAHA So after Tai Chi we got to visit a calligraphy master. That was pretty cool, he made some things for us to watch and then let some of the kids in our group try. I was busy snapping pictures so I didn't get a chance to try my hand at it. Oh well. After that we were led to a old folks home right next door to the calligrapher and I just walked through to see how it was and then after that we loaded on the buses for the long ride back to Beijing. We ended up being on the bus for over 2 hours because of traffic. We finally arrived at our restaurant and I was excited to get to eat the Peking Duck again. It is really a good dish, and I got to teach our table how to eat it because I learned that while back in the states from one of the books I read about Beijing. After dinner we were led to the buses and on the way I was able to purchase an Olympic hat off a street vendor for like 2 bucks. When I got to the room that night I was pretty pooped so I showered, checked my e-mail and turned in. The next day I would get to visit the Great Wall!!!!

July 10th in China, Silk Market!

The first part of the day was pretty slow because I slept in and was lazy. I walked to KFC for lunch though and it was great. Then at 3:30 I met up with a few of the girls, Elle, Jashin and Beth and we met our chinese grad student Bonnie in the lobby. Bonnie helped us find our way to the bus, to the subway and then walked us the rest of the way to the Silk Market. The Silk Market is a huge shopping center with clothes of all sorts, belts, chinese knick knacks, electronics, shoes, purses and well everything you could ever want. The only thing is that here you can bargain with the people selling stuff. Lots of the clothes and bags are knock off too. HAHA I bought a purse and some souvenirs for my family. It was so much fun to stand there are tell the people what price you were going to pay, and what price you weren't paying and like 9 times out of 10 if the seller refused the price and you walked away they would sell it to you for the price you offered. I actually had one lady and her daughter grab my arms and pull me back to their stand. However when they wouldn't let go after I told them repeatedly that I didn't want to buy a wallet from them I got really angry. I actually had to fight my way out of their booth and then pull the daughter's hands off my arm. I ended up getting some chopsticks, a purse, and lots of gifts before we left after 2 hours of Silk Market shopping. After shopping Elle, Jashin and I went to a restaurant that was just around the corner from the market and ate supper. I got sweet and sour shrimp which was AMAZING! We had a little bit of a rough time because non of the waiters knew english but we made it through ordering our meal alright. After our delicious meal and talk of life, family, friends, boys and school we got on the subway and headed home.

We had to be up early the next night for a tour so I settled in and watched a movie, The Other Boelyn Girl, and did some chatting online and then hit the hay!

July 9th in China, ZOO and Pandas!

I got up early on this day because Whitney, Matt, Allie and I had made plans to get to the Beijing Zoo to see the Pandas! It was fun we got there around 9 am and stood in line for our tickets. We got into the zoo pretty fast and headed for the Panda exhibits first. The first pandas we saw were pretty laid back and non-active. But then we walked over to what was called "The Olympic Pandas" and the pandas in this enclosure were just full of life! They were so cute I took so many pictures and recorded a lot of video. We spent quite a bit of time in there watching the pandas. When we left the Panda house we saw certain animals such as American wildlife (owls, coyotes, foxes) and then also monkeys and giraffes. We walked around forever looking for the flamingos and also looking for the Penguin house. The zoo was really beautiful, lots of ponds and a creek/river with amazing bridges. Also there was an area that was really cool because it had about 12 stone elephants all in this courtyard that were all different shapes and sizes. Lots of people were getting their pictures taken with these statues so of course we all did the same! haha! After the elephants statues we actually found the penguin house, it was pretty cool. I again got some great pictures and then in the basement of the Penguin house there was oddly enough the bat house. We didn't stay down in the dark around the bats long though. When we were walking out of the Penguin house we ran into a group of elementary school chinese children. It was by far the cutest thing that happened at the zoo because all 30 or so of the kids were waving and saying hello and then their teacher took a picture of us Americans with all the kids around us. It was the highlight of my day! So cute! After that we ran into a couple people from America as well, Connecticut I believe is where they were from, and it was fun to talk to them. It was an older women and her daughter and the older lady said that people just kept stopping her for pictures. I guess white haired white ladies are quite the sight here in China! haha! After the zoo we headed back to the hotel where I was able to get in a small nap. After my little snooze I headed out to pick up my laundry and ran into my friend Mark while I was there. So Mark, Matt and I all ended up walking to the canteen again to get some food. I tell you what the Kung Pao chicken is awesome! After dinner I was walking back to my room in the hotel and ran into a couple of the other girls in our group and they invited me to go with them to a district called Hou Hai, which has lots of clubs, karaoke places and love music. It was one of the girls', Ashley's, birthday. So I decided that it may be fun to go out. So we all got ready and took a cab out to Hou Hai. The first place we stopped at was called the Paradise club. The music was good and it was a neat place to sit but we weren't there long. we walked all over just listening to the music and seeing what was going on. my favorite highlight of the night was in this place where there was a chinese punk rock band playing. They were actually really good and guess what their closing song was?? HAHA It was Stand by Me. I was like "Hey I know this song"! After that we were pretty much all wiped out from walking around and it was also late so we called it a night. It was quite the full day with the highlight being the kids at the zoo and definitely the Pandas! If you are ever in Beijing you must see them! haha

July 8th in China, Night market!

Today we had another class, this time I was smart and took my computer because the lectures tend to get so long and this one was even harder because even the slides we had to look at were in Chinese. After about a 4 hour class I ate at the canteen again and then took my laundry to be done at the laundromat on campus. I walked to the market really close to the laundromat and bought myself an Olympic bag. After buying my bag and getting back to the hotel I met up with Allie and Whitney and they invited me to go eat at Pizza Hut with them. It is the fanciest Pizza Hut I have ever seen. Over here it is like a fancy sit down restaurant. It was great, we got an "American special", which is just a pepperoni pizza. We waited for our friend Matt to show up while we were there and then we all left to go to the bus stop. We rode the bus to the subway and took the line down to the night market. At the market they have stands that cook squid, scorpions, bugs, and all sorts of scary stuff. I tried squid, beef and then candied apples. It was a fun experience and is something I suggest you see if you ever visit China. After we were done snacking and what not, we walked around the area for a bit because the place where the market is, resembles a small time square. We went into the flagship Olympic Store and the giant Nike store. We also just hung out a little bit in a courtyard and people watched it was fun to just relax and talk. On our way to leave we found a funny statue of a Rickshaw and all decided to take our pictures in it. Then we left the Time Square area and started to walk toward a less touristy part of town because all the cab drivers close to the night market were trying to rip off tourists by saying the drive was way more than it should be. We walked as far as Tian'an Men Square before we got a cab. Which funny enough was the first time I had ever been on a cab, it also was the first time I had ever been on a subway that night as well. So it was a big night for me. hahaha. :) After we got back to the hotel I was pretty beat from a fun night at the market so I just showered and went to bed.

July 7th in China, formal reception!

We had class today. It was a lecture from one of the chinese professors here at Renmin University and because it had to be translated it took quite some time. I think all in all the lecture lasted 3 hours. After we were finally released from the lecture a group of us walked to a canteen/dining hall that was close to our classroom. It is the best dining hall we have found yet because they cook the food to order so you get it nice and hot. I tried some sweet and sour pork tenders from this place and absolutely loved it! A very good dish to remember in the future.
After lunch I headed back to the room took a little nap and watch a movie on my computer. Around 4ish me and Whitney walked over to a couple different markets that are on campus and one of them is an official Olympic sponsor shop so that is cool.
We didn't have much time to look around, we were mainly just passing time until we had to get back to the hotel to get ready for a formal reception that we, along with all the other schools staying at Renmin, were invited to.
The reception started at 7 pm so because I didn't bring many dressy clothes I got ready and dressed and nice as I could and headed out to the dinner. At the dinner we were entertained by singing groups as well as speeches from the Renmin professors and all the visiting schools professors. In return for the entertainment each group was asked to also provide some entertainment so our professor, Larry Powell, gave a speech and then our group sang the Mizzou fight song! It was fun! But of course UNC (they are volunteering too) had to sing their fight song right after us! haha Copy cats!
As for the food at the reception it wasn't bad but not the best food I have had here. The one thing that was really good was the Peking duck though. It was good. After dinner some of my friends and my roomie went out to a dance club but I didn't want to go so I just turned in for the night to prepare for class again the next day.

July 6th in China, Free day! WOO!

This was a free day which meant I slept in, cleaned the room and organized a bit as well as did a little reading. At lunch I walked with my friend Whitney to McDonald's where I was able to enjoy a delicious BIG MAC! Aww it was great! haha!
After lunch I headed back to the hotel and just messed around on the internet and tried uploading pictures as well as talking to my friends and e-mailing my family. I watched the movie 10,000 B.C. until supper.
I went to supper with my friend Allie. She had just gotten done with her work out because she is a swimmer for Mizzou and so she has to work out and train while here for the summer. We walked to the canteen/dining hall where we had ate before but sadly it was closed so we ended up going and eating at this restaurant on campus called Water Stone Coffee. It is a nice place. I got a coke and we both ordered a pizza to split.
The food was good but also odd, because we ordered the veggie pizza but it included certain veggies like corn, kidney beans and then certain NOT-veggies like raisins! It was weird eating pizza with raisins on it but it tasted pretty good actually! Another weird thing I tried at this meal that I had never had or even heard of was bubble tea. It is a milk tea with tapioca balls in the bottom of the glass. Yeah I know, weird huh? but yeah apparently this stuff is big in Canada as well as cities in the United States. I guess Allie would know because she is canadian. But anyways, this was a rather uneventful day because I was just relaxing and resting.
After dinner with Allie I went back to the room and watched some more tv, Chinese tv is really weird by the way. I watched Growing Pains, haha it was in chinese though! They just dub chinese voices over the American ones! I also watched some sports, sand volleyball and tennis and then talked a bit online to Micah and then went to bed.
The next morning, Monday, we were going to have class again.

July 5th in China, the Forbidden City!!!

Well this was by far one of the most busy days I have had yet! We all met at 8:15 am in the lobby to get on the buses. I got on a bus with a tour guide named Steve. He was a very happy chinese man and he spoke great English. It was raining when we headed out but by the time we got to Tian'an men square it was just a lil misty out. We were able to take pictures and view several things in the Tian'an Men square such as Zhengyang Men, Mao's Mausoleum and the Great Hall of the people as well as the monument to the people's heroes.
We walked through the Tian'an Men building, which is the one that has Mao's portrait still hanging on it today. While heading through the building and as we got closer to the Forbidden City, we were hassled by so many people trying to pawn things. The biggest item that folks seem to be selling is a Mao watch. The watch has a picture of Mao in the middle with his arm constantly waving at you.
When we arrived in the outer court of the Forbidden City we had to wait while Steve bought all our groups' tickets. While waiting for him Whitney, Allie and I looked around at some of the souvenir stands and I bought myself a coca-cola. While waiting in line we met another American who was visiting the city. He was from New York. He was seriously one of the only Americans that was not with our group. Because there was so few of us visiting the Forbidden City, it was not odd to have someone chinese ask to take a picture with us or hand us their kids. People really want pictures with Americans! It is so weird.
After we got our tickets and went through security we headed out on our tour and crossed over the Golden Water and went through the Gate of Supreme Harmony. We enjoyed seeing many great courtyards and detailed buildings as well as hearing many stories of the city's history from Steve. There are many carvings of dragons and lions, there are also guardians on the roofs of most of the halls. They are perched like gargoyles on the edges of the roofs. We also saw statues of cranes and turtles as well as the tradition lions that guard many entryways. The male lion has his paw on a ball, and the female has hers on a cub. Also we noticed many carvings of dragons and phoenixes together. The dragon and phoenix symbolize the emperor as dragon and empress as phoenix.
The biggest hall in the city is the Hall of Supreme Harmony where the emperor's throne sits. We were able to peer in and look at the gold and bejeweled throne. It was magnificent! We were able to enjoy many more halls and view many more courtyards. Something else I noticed is that there are several large bronze cauldrons placed all over the city. these were in case there was ever a fire so they were always filled with water. About this time during the trip I filled up the camera card I had in my digital rebel and had to switch. The sad thing was my 1 GB card would not work in my camera. I have no idea why but it still won't work. I was able to delete some pics and change some things on my camera so that I had room enough for more pictures throughout the day, but I was not happy about deleting pictures!!! Finally the last thing we saw in the Forbidden City was my favorite. We got to tour the Imperial Garden. I loved it, with all its plants and temples and beautiful rock sculptures. There was also a giant pot like urn in the middle of the garden and it was said if you threw a coin into the top of it through one of the holes that it was good luck. I made it through one of the holes but later one of my friends told me that they think I actually through the coin in one hole on one side and out the other hole on the other side! haha! That would happen to me! :)
We departed the city through the gate of Heavenly Purity and headed back to the buses and they took us to lunch. We ate at a restaurant nearby. It had good food and served us several different and interesting chinese dishes. The restaurant was decorate really neat and was very pretty but the bathrooms threw me off guard. They were nice but weirdly the back wall of the restroom is a 1 way mirror so you can see out to the stairs leading up to the dining hall but when you are on the stairs it just looks like another mirror. Very odd indeed.
After lunch we headed back to the buses and while on the way to them I ended up making a purchase from a street vendor. I bought a set of keychains that were the Olympic mascots for 1 American dollar. Not a bad price, but then again everything over here is pretty cheap! We got on the buses and went to our next part of our tour for the day which was the drum tower and bell tower. We didn't get to go up into the bell tower but we did get a chance to go up into the drum tower to see the city from a high vantage point. The only bad thing was, to get to this vantage point we had to walk up the steepest, tallest, scariest stair well I have ever seen!!!
From the top of the drum tower you could look out over the entire city all around because you can walk a complete 360 around the top terrace. You can see the hundreds of skyscrapers spread out over the huge city. There is not one center downtown area in Beijing. Stuff is just everywhere!!! From this high point you could also see the mountains in the distance which was really awesome. We also were able to enjoy a drum performance while we were in the tower.
After we climbed back down the treacherous staircase we all go to pair up and load up into rickshaws. A rickshaw is a small cart that traditional was pulled by a man on foot but now is pulled by guys on bicycles! This was an interesting and kind of scary experience as I rode along with my friend Danielle. We were taken to a Hutong by the rickshaws.
A hutong is a traditional courtyard home, that has several houses in a fenced in area. In this fenced connected housing area one family will live. I mean everyone in the family too, aunts, uncles, cousins, sons, daughters, parents. EVERYONE! This is a traditional way of family living in China. We were able to visit a Hutong. We went inside and took a tour and even sat in one of the rooms while the mother of the family we visited talked about the history of her home and of her family. After her presentation she showed us around her Hutong a bit more and then we departed.
After the Hutong tour we visited the garden of Prince Gong's Mansion. This garden was spectacular with plants and temples everywhere. Great buildings and a huge koi pond complete with fountains and of course lily pads. Also one of the coolest things found in the garden was a traditional chinese tea house. Our group was able to be seated at a table with a chinese woman who was a learned and educator tea preparer. She showed us the right way to use one cup to smell the tea and how to hold the drinking cup. She taught us history and tea etiquette. We were able to taste 4 different kinds of teas that she prepared for us. The most traditional being Jasmine tea. I bought myself a souvenir here before we left. I got a mug that has a picture of a dragon on it, but when you pour hot water in it the picture of the dragon turns to a picture of the Great Wall.
After we left the tea house our rickshaws took us back to meet the buses. I got back to the hotel and talked with my roomie a bit because she had been on the other bus the whole day and they took a little bit different tour than my group did. But judging from what I have heard I was in the best group of the day as far as the tour went. After chatting a bit I headed out with Allie, Whitney, Matt and Mark to go eat at a dining hall on campus and to find out where the laundry place closest to our hotel was.
After dinner I was so tired I didn't do much but send out a few e-mails, shower and watch a bit of a movie. The next day was a free day so I could rest up!

July 4th in China, media tours!

I got up at around 7 again to get ready for a busy day of touring Media/News Companies in Beijing. We all loaded up on the buses and headed to our first stop which was an internet company called People.com. We were guided on a tour of the companies offices and got to meet a few of the employees. After our tour we were then led to a conference room where the companies Vice President gave a small presentation on his company. We were also given gifts from People.com, we got a small notebook with their logo on it and also a pen that you could pull a calendar out of. The chinese calendar for the next 2 years wound up into to the pen. After a few questions were asked we left People.com and headed to lunch.

We ended up spending 100 yuan (around 15-17 American dollars) on lunch. It was a fancy restaurant that was a buffet. Someone said it was a five star place but I don't know. It was good though, and there was A LOT of food. There was even pizza! :) I ate quite a bit and just admired the beautiful restaurant with glass floors and cool lights and flowers everywhere.
After filling up on all that good food we headed to our next stop on the tour.

We toured Beijing Youth Daily next. It is a newspaper and magazine company. The tour was fun and there was some neat things to take pictures of inside the BYD building such as weird soccer guy statues and an olympic ring sculpture. We were guided around the offices again and then led to another conference room. We were also greeted with gifts and bottled water. We received a mouse back-pack and several copies of the magazine. From the conference room on the 12th floor I was also able to get some GREAT photos that I hopefully will have up soon.

After our second visit we loaded up back on the buses to drive back across town to our hotel. While on the way back my friends Whitney, Allie and I decided we were going to try to go see the Chinese acrobats perform that night. When we got back we changed and got ready and headed out of the hotel. We were going to the corner where the cabs wait and didn't even make it half way and we got stuck in a down pour!! It was awful we were soaked in seconds. So we decided to try and run back to the hotel to get changed and then have the front desk call us a cab. Unfortunately by the time we got back the clerks at the front told us that we most likely did not have enough time to get to the show. Oh well, we are still planning on doing that another time.

So I went back to my room, washed all the smog rain off of me and then sat down and read a bit. I felt a bit tired around 8 pm and thought I would take a small nap but actually ended up sleeping right through to the next morning!!

July 3rd in China, class, uniforms and phones!

I woke up around 7:00 am and was able to get in some chatting online before getting ready for the day. I was also able to take a hot shower since I had figured out how to use the hot water the night before. Around 9 my roomie and I headed to the lobby to meet with the rest of our group to head to the student activity building. At our meeting there we took group photos, we were given letters of commitment by the Olympic New Service, we were handed SIM cards for our chinese phones, and also got to try on different sizes for our uniforms.
It took forever to pick the right sizes of uniforms and shoes. All the sizes run small because chinese girls are extremely skinny and then the shoes were not in big enough for half our group. The girls had to try on the men's shoes to get ones that fit. HAHA!
I ended up finding everything that fit so that was lucky. We have Olympic polos, pants and even our adidas shoes are embroidered with the Beijing 2008 emblem. Pretty cool!

After the clothes fiasco, I got to meet with the reporters I will be reporting with and helping out during the games. I met the main cycling official and she was really nice. Her name was Candy. After meeting and talking about what I will be doing and when I will be training I headed across the street to get my photo taken individually for our Renmin University student ID. After getting all that taken care of I was able to get my phone card up and running on my new chinese cell phone. After all this the chinese students helping our group out led us to eat lunch at a different dining hall than the one we had the night before. It was pretty good, I had beef and potatoes over noodles with these sweet roll things. I got a lot of food for 2 bucks! The prices over here are awesome. The typical meal doesnt cost over 3 bucks and I have ate several for like $1.50.

After lunch our student guides led us to the bank where I was able to take out 1,000 yuan roughly 145 dollars from an ATM.
After the busy day of getting things in order I was able to sneak to the room for a small break before we had our lecture at 3. I was able to use my phone to call people back home and also get changed out of the nice clothes I had on into shorts and a t-shirt for class.

The class wasn't bad it took a while because it had to be translated because the teacher who was giving it didn't speak English. It was all about China's history and culture. After we got out of the lecture my roomie and I pretty much crashed into a small nap. I woke with plenty of time to get ready for a reception our group was invited to in the Angel Restaurant across the street.
I stayed for about an hour there, the food they had was pretty good. I really liked the dumplings and watermelon! :)
Around 8 pm I headed back to the room for some alone time. I thought a little about Billy and how it had been 5 years to the day since he passed away. When my roomie got back I didnt really feel like going out, she invited me to go with a group to a karoake club but I decided not to. I mean I have 2 months to get things in, dont want to wear myself out too soon! I just got all unpacked and organized and then I loaded some pictures from the Cardinals vs. Royals game that I went to onto facebook. I watched a movie called Waitress and then went to bed, ready for a big day the next day!

July 2nd in China, First evening here!

Well after an hour bus ride to the hotel we were staying at I was feeling so beat that I could hardly stand, unfortunately it was only about 5:00 so I had to wait a while before being able to go to bed. I had to hand in my passport to the desk at the hotel to check-in and then I had to chase down one of the hotel workers as the bus was being unloaded because he had my bag! LOL I know he was just trying to get things unloaded fast but it was still funny trying to communicate to him that he was hauling my bag and that I could take it.

My roomie and I got our keys in the lobby and were one of the first to get to their room. Right away I decided to hop in the shower to freshen up and hopefully wake up a bit because we only had an hour until we had to be back in the lobby to go to a meeting. I ended up having to take a cold shower because I did not know how to turn on the hot water. In China the hot water heater is on the wall above the toilet and apparently you have to switch a button to get hot water. Lesson learned! Also the bathroom is weird because water doesnt drain right into the shower, in fact there really isn't anything stopping water from flowing out on the floor, it is suppose to be like this, the shower is the same level as the floor of the rest of the bathroom and a drain in the middle of the room is where all the water goes. It is odd that the whole bathroom floor gets covered in water each time you shower but whatever.

Our room is pretty nice, clean and has a great view. We ended up getting a room on the 7th floor so that is cool. The mattresses are a bit hard but not uncomfortable and the pillows are weird, they are those seed pillows. You know what I am talking about?? haha

But after getting cleaned up I went down to the lobby to meet up with the rest of the group, we then headed to a canteen/dining hall to get some dinner. It was the most awful experience though because first our guides took us the wrong way twice, then once we got there the canteen only had the menu in Chinese. So 4 of our guides had to help the 60 of us students order!!! It was nuts!! My stomach still wasn't feeling the greatest so I just got a bowl of white rice. I did get to eat some of my roomie's curry chicken though. It was pretty good, by the way I ate it all with chop sticks. :)
While everyone else finished their food I rested my head on the table until we had to go.

We headed to the student activity center where our meeting was. We were all given bank cards (In case we decided to use them) and also temporary cards for the canteen and dining places on campus as well as cell phones. After being told about the things that would happen the next day we were free to leave.

I pretty much passed out when I got back to the room, so I could get up and ready for the day to start at 7 am the next morning!

Flight and arrival!!!

Well, the flight was awful. Getting to the airport and security wasn't bad but I am way too stir crazy and fidgety to sit on a plane for 13 or more hours. I also was in the middle row of seats so I couldn't even look out a window. I would check once in a while out the window near the restroom when I went to use it but to be honest I couldn't see anything. ESPECIALLY the North Pole it was so bright that it was just blindingly white! I got to watch a few things while on the plane, the Discovery channel actually played which is a fave of mine and then the movies Fool's Gold, Horton Hears a Who, Married Life and Flawless. I didn't really pay attention to the last one (Flawless) because I was so beat! LOL

One thing I found interesting on the plane was the food and beverages. I got a coca cola each time I was offered a drink. The first can was definitely bottled in Berlin and was really odd, my second can came from Thailand and my third can was Chinese and finally the fourth can I got was American LOL, although it was still shaped funny with a wavy lip like thing instead of the regular way at the top (oh yeah this vast diversity in my coca-cola cans was most def. the highlight of the flight). The food was ok, we had 2 lunches, a snack supper thing and a few sweet snacks, coffee and hot tea. The supper snack thing was just like the cup of noodles things that you can buy at wal-mart near the Ramen noodles and our meals were first chicken and noodles and then lasagna. The last meal, the lasagna did me in. We got it about an hour before landing and I was not feeling well at all!

Once we got to the airport I was a bit better and didn't have trouble getting my bags and getting through all the security.
After that we hopped on the buses and took about an hour drive to Remnin University where we are staying.

Well I have to go for now but I will update you on my first evening in China and then about the happenings so far as soon as I can!
God Bless!