Today was an important day because today was the day when Justin got his Visa. We got up early and tried to find the US Embassy. Since we really didn’t have too much time, we decided to take the subway as it would be much faster. It was actually very nice. Several new lines were built for the Olympics and the one we needed was close to our hotel. We got on the Number 10 line which took about 20 minutes to get us fairly close to the Embassy. After about 10-20 minutes of walking and several stops to ask for directions, we finally got there. It seems like it’s still being built so it actually looks kinda crappy (pics below). Justin went to go in, but I found that I couldn’t at all since I didn’t have my passport and I couldn’t go in the section that he did since it was just for all the Chinese trying to get a Visa. This freaked me out because I’d been with him the entire time so far and suddenly we’re separated. He called me and said that I could go across the street to a cafe and they’d probably know some English. Instead, I waited outside the Embassy for almost 40 minutes until it was 8 am. Eventually though it got too cold and I went to the cafe. It was a Western and Chinese Cafe and Bar. It was pretty nice inside and a waitress knew basic English and I ordered sweet warm milk and an omolet. Now this is where I got confused. I thought that it would be 38 RMB but it turned out to be 66 RMB as the milk was 22 – I thought it was included with the meal. Woops! That turned out to be an expensive meal indeed. I had to go somewhere though as it could take up to three hours until Justin would get out.
As I felt lost, I figured out how to turn my phone back to English from Chinese and then after several tries got the calling card to work correctly. I called Mom and Dad and then Corey for a total of about 25 minutes. Naturally, I did it wrong and it turned out to be a very costly call. I think it was about 15-20 RMB plus the cost through the calling card which was minimal. At about 9:30 he called me and was on his way over. He got approved for the Visa which was great news! And actually, he was in line for about and hour and a half but only with the interviewer for the Visa for about 2 minutes.
Next up we decided to go see the new CCTV building and also go to the Beijing Apple store, after which we would go to a few Olympic buildings and then see how much time was left in the day.
So, we took a bus from somewhere a few blocks from the Embassy to the new CCTV building. It is the one below that looks almost like a pair of pants – it goes up, then juts out with nothing to support it, then goes back down. It’s a pretty cool looking building. Next we walked for a very very long time around the China Business District which is where CCTV and Apple were located. After consulting the map a few times and roaming around enough, we finally found the Apple Store (pics below). This was the second Apple store that I’ve been to so far (Beijing and Chicago). The biggest thing for me here was actually that I could finally get my iPhone online and try to update it. Apple always has free wireless internet no matter where you go. Unlike in America though, there was very few people at the Apple store. It’s usually crowded in America.
After this we walked for a while more and then got on a subway. We made a few transfers and ended up on Line 8 which was built just for the Olympic buildings. It has only three stops on the entire line. After getting off at the first stop, it drops you pretty much right between both the Water Cube and the Bird’s Nest stadium. Many pictures are below of both of these buildings. Tickets are limited to get into the Water Cube so we ended up only going into the Bird’s Nest and it was 50 RMB each. Once we got in the gate, some fun began. There were MANY people trying to sell souveniers – they’d swarm you and when you let them talk for a bit and then start to leave they’d lower the price and increase the count of items. We ended up buying some, but found that later on we probably could have gotten it even cheaper – oh well.
It was actually surprising that as big as the Bird’s Nest stadium is from the outside and how big it looked on TV, it’s actually not that big at all on the inside. It didn’t take that long to walk around and just seems smaller in general than you’d think. It still was cool regardless though and there’s a video below as well. There were Christmas displays and music playing inside the stadium. Once we left the stadium we tried to get into the Water Cube, but it was sold out for the day. They only sell so many tickets in a day probably to not over-load it. We’re going to try to go back if we can sometime later.
Walking back, we took the number 8 subway line, transferred to the number 10, and then transferred to number 5 to go most of the way to our next destination. We decided that we didn’t want to go into the Forbidden City. All of the architecture is identical and it was 70 RMB each to get in. So instead, we went to Jingshen Hill. That was right next to the Forbidden City’s back entrance and it was only 2 RMB to get in each. But from there, once you climbed to the top, you could see all of the Forbidden City, and the entire city of Beijing. It was cool to see where we’d been from way up high. Below are several videos with commentary along with many pictures from the Hill.
Once we left the Hill, we took a very crowded bus to the newest train station in Beijing that looks like three hills. From there we took a short very very crowded train ride and got off. We decided to go to Walmart as it was right there. It was three stories tall and huge. There was a lot more things in there than there is in any other Walmart in America. There are a few pictures of it at the end. We also ate at Fairwood which was pretty good Chinese food. We had a small version of Hot Pot which is where you get all sorts of food and a thing of boiling soup and you actually cook the food yourself.
After we were done with all that, we took a taxi home and then crashed. We both fell asleep with the entire room a mess so I’m writing this the next morning. Look for another update tomorrow.
(The upload is going very badly as the Internet seems to be getting worse. I’ll be posting a few pictures here and there, but from now on, come back later for the full album. I let the upload run all day 12/30 and only 57/251 were uploaded…)
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