Random
Yep, I’m still alive
Just a fairly quick post. I’m still alive and kicking, just have been even less frequent in posting than usual (I’ve been trying to post at least one a week or two).
Some quick updates:
- We took a nice trip to Buffalo NY and Toronto almost two months ago. Pics here here and here.
- A few weeks later we went to Indianapolis for lunch and then went to a Corn Maze in Lafayette. Want to see some pictures?
- Last weekend Justin, Dad, Corey and I went to Chicago as a bachelor party for Corey. We went to the Museum of Science and Industry, ate at Subway, then went to Shedd Aquarium. It was a pretty fun trip ending with us getting drenched. More pics!
- I had stitches a few weeks ago after a few moles were removed (all normal) and finally went running today for the first time in several weeks. Felt great!
- Lastly, I’ve been secretly working on a project that will go live here in the near future. It’s coming along nicely after having been stalled for quite a long time. I’ll post a decent update for that once it’s ready.
In the meantime, I’ll try to actually post some stuff occasionally.
Ice T Mac Repair
I shed a tear. From laughter.
Sunday January 4, 2009
Today we got up at 8:30 and this time we also both had the same amount of sleep, which was a lot nicer for Justin. We didn’t have time for showers as we didn’t have too much time. We were driven back to Chengdu where Justin and his mom went to his teacher and got a spare key to her apartment. We then drove to her apartment and quickly picked up our bag that we had left there. Next up was to drive to the bus station in Chengdu. As it was close to lunch time, we left the bags in the car and went to a restaurant for a nice lunch. It was interesting at one point because some tibetans came into the restaurant begging for money. Staff quickly got them out however. Once we got done with dinner, we grabbed our bags from the car, got tickets to go from Chengdu (程度) to Ya’an (雅安). As we had just missed a bus, we sat and waited for an hour.
Once the next bus arrived, we put our larger bags underneath and grabbed our seats. As there were two seats on each side of the isle, Justin and I sat next to each other and his mom sat on the other side of the isle. She quickly became friends with the person she was sitting next to and for the next two and a half hours, traded food between all of us and she talked with him and Justin while Justin and I talked or napped. The drive there was far better and calmer than driving in Chengdu. There is a highway that connects many of the further cities to each other and it’s different than even a tollroad in America. These roads are two lanes on each direction with trees all over the place to mute the sound. Also, since the area itself is very scenic, depending on the weather you can see mountains, etc quite easily. Once we got to Ya’an, the bus drove around and finally got to the bus station which was a lot more rural than in Chengdu. We took two taxis and went to an apartment that his dad is house-sitting at and that is where we will sleep for the several days. This apartment was interesting as it was actually two stories tall. The first floor contained a sitting room, bathroom, kitchen, living room and bedroom. The second floor contained a bedroom, another room and another bathroom that was bigger. For the most part, I used the upstairs bedroom as it had a normal toilet in it whereas the first floor contained a squat toilet, which I’ve grown to not really like too much.
After we got our stuff settled, we went to his dad’s side of the family, to one of their apartments for dinner. After dinner, there was naturally more pictures and I watched some TV while everyone talked. After we left we went to a supermarket for food and then went back to the apartment. we didn’t get to see Justin’s family’s apartment yet but I think we’ll get to tomorrow maybe. We pulled most of the stuff from our luggage and started to organize everything, which caused the living room of the apartment to become a chaotic mess as everything was everywhere. After we’d gotten everything organized however, we went back out again for a late-night meal of noodles just down the street. The small restaurant was open 24 hours a day and had noodles for 3-5 RMB a bowl – considerably cheaper than Chengdu and certainly Beijing let alone America.
Once full we came back to the apartment and took nice warm showers. I called home for the first time in a few days and then we went to bed. The bed as a very large four-post bed. If there’s not a picture below of it, I’ll try to take one later.
Saturday January 3, 2009
Today we both got up at about 8 in the morning. We got to sleep on a pretty nice bed that had a heated blanket so it was pretty nice. However, I found out shortly after getting up that Justin didn’t have such a nice sleep. I was able to get a full eight hours of sleep, but Justin only had five as he was up until three talking to his mom. After we got dressed and everything, we ate breakfast at his cousin sister’s apartment then we all left and drove in two vehicles to Du Jiang Yan (都江堰), which was pretty much the epicenter of the May 12, 2008 earthquake. This day is pretty important because although it has been nearly eight months since the earthquake, it has devastated the city. Millions died and many were left homeless. It really was a tragic event with many schools in the city simply collapsing taking everyone inside with it.
After we all arrived in the city, a tour guide was found and we were taken up the side of a mountain in car and arrived at the famous Dujiangyan irrigation system. It is amazing in many respects, but the main one was that although many buildings around it had crumbled and nearby roads were damaged, the system was untouched. It was built in 250BC so it’s been around for about 2,200 years and has been running great since the beginning. There are many pictures below of it. After we got done with pictures of the system, we drove back to the main part of the city and had lunch at a restaurant that was on the side of a river. The food was good, but I later learned that because it was a tourist location, it was also overpriced considerably.
After lunch, we all got back in our cars and we were driven around the city some more. There are some pictures below of earthquake damage from various locations around the city. We also went and saw camps which were built quickly to house the survivors while the city is being worked on. Most of the bigger buildings which fell in the earthquake are gone now leaving only some rubble remaining, yet other buildings remain as there are more important things to be working on most likely. Many buildings along the streets are empty as they simply are no longer safe to live in. Next we drove back to Pi Xian and met more of Justin’s family at their house in a very rural area. While waiting, I saw some people playing Mahjong. Now, I wanted to get a picture but didn’t as I didn’t think it was respectful, but it’s played quite differently than in America. There were four people sitting around a table with stacks of tiles and that is how it is played in China. I didn’t watch for too long, but it looks a lot more difficult than what is played in America.
We then went for the first dinner of the night. Due to conflicting relationships in the family, we were to have two dinners that night although the first people didn’t know that. The first dinner was a hotpot. It was better than the lunch and also cheaper since it was outside of a tourist area. After that one, we were dropped off back at his cousin sister’s apartment where we had our second dinner. I liked this one better not only because of the food, but the people. It just seems more natural to be around them (his cousin sister, her daughter and friend, and that immediate family along with his mom). Justin and I sorted through luggage after dinner and then we went back to the second apartment for the night. Before sleep, several people, along with Justin, his mom and I watched footage of the earthquake. This is footage that was taken by actual people in Du Jiang Yan and is not footage that would be shown on any TV network in China. It was very hard to watch most of it as it was pretty graphic in what was shown. As such, it became obvious why most of the footage was not shown on any news network that I’d seen. We ended up not watching all of it as it was too graphic and instead went to sleep at midnight again.
Friday January 2, 2009
Today we got up at about 9am at his teacher’s house and, after getting everything done that we needed to, left by 10:30. We said goodbye to his teacher and his teacher’s husband drove us to Pi Xian (郫县). We met up with his mom’s family. As always, everyone was very nice and treated me well. As Pi Xian was still close to ChengDu, some random people were started to stare, but not too many. The reason is that although there are some foreigners there, there’s not many so it’s something fairly different for them. It wasn’t really his family doing this, but rather just random people on the street or in restaurants.
We went to lunch and ate at a restaurant – however, there were so many people that it required two very large tables for everyone to sit down. I think there was probably about 25-30 people total just in our group alone. The food was pretty good. There was some things that were of course too spicy for me, but given that this is the Sichuan province, that’s understandable – they are notorious for spicier food. It’s important to note, if not already clear, that during almost every meal in China, everyone sits at a large round table and typically 5-15 dishes are ordered. It’s all placed on a very large lazy susan in the middle of the table and the food is shared amongst everyone – just pick up whatever you want. Towards the end of the meal, there was one dish that was supposedly American, but I’d never seen it before. It was basically a huge bowl filled with a fried sugar thing that was yellow. It was very sweet and although good, was completely different than the rest of the food at the table.
After dinner, Justin’s cousin brother drove and we went to visit the graves of several of Justin’s grandfathers. Naturally, there are no pictures of this shown below as that is disrespectful, but I can at least try to describe it. We drove through an area that was very very rural. By that, I mean the roads were mostly dirt and barely wide enough for a car – on either side it dropped off a few feet as a ditch for water for fields that were there. Once we got there, we walked to the grave which was nice. On the front it had a sort of family tree showing all of the children and marriages. One of the graves was quite old (over eighty years ago) yet was in good condition as it was restored many years ago, which is something that is rarely done in the USA. A common tradition that they practiced while there was that they burned fake money and pieces of paper, along with lighting incense and candles. According to Justin, the incense and candles are meant to tell the deceased that people are coming – almost like knocking on a door. The money is then being burned to be given to them in the afterlife. Once this is done, everyone kneels and prays one-by-one. It was a nice thing to watch and I made sure to stay out of the way so that I didn’t disturb them.
Once we were ready to go, we drove some more and went back into more rural areas and ended up at more of his family. We had dinner there which was of course good yet had to leave before it got dark or else it would be very difficult to get out due to the very narrow road. After leaving, we went to his first maternal cousin sister’s apartment in Pi Xian. Her daughter (Huang, Wei 黄薇) gave me a bull stuffed animal which was very nice. 2009 is the Year of the Bull in Chinese tradition. His nephew also gave me a two-dollar coin from Hong Kong. Justin’s mom then showed me a sweater vest that she was making for Corey. This surprised me as I had no idea that she was doing this. It looked like it was about half-way done already too. Where mine was white with some different colored specs intermixed, his was green with a pattern.
Later we went and walked around Pi Xian. We ended up at a store that both his cousin sister and her sister worked at. His mom and cousin sister tried to find me some shoes as a gift, but we found out that that was a futile attempt as apparently my shoe size is too big and I wouldn’t be able to find any shoes in all of China! China goes by European standards and my shoe size is 48. The highest size available in China is 46. We walked around the store some more and ended up leaving without actually buying anything other than a small amount of food. On the way back, we stopped and Wei bought a traditional snack for several of us. It was a little strange, but was actually pretty good. It was in a (probably) 12oz cup and was a mixture that was halfway between being a solid and a liquid. Mine was blueberry flavored with pieces of rainsins. It was also quite sweet but I liked it! After we got back, we picked up some of our stuff and went to another apartment to sleep for the night as there wasn’t enough room in his cousin sister’s apartment.
Thursday January 1, 2009
What a day. First we didn’t leave hotel until almost 6am. Then it took time to get to the train station then almost 40 min just to get to transfer station. Then the train that we were told took eight min to get to the airport took twenty. We didn’t even get to our terminal until after the plane had already started boarding. After running from terminal two to terminal one with all the luggage ( supposed to take five minutes) we were late. Very late. The plane takes off in ten minutes late. I was really worried now not only because we had missed it but also because now we’d probably have to pay huge fees to get another flight. After they took us out of the computer for the fliight we went to the ticket counter and after much work with the woman at the ticket counter, we got new tickets for 1220 RMB total for a few hours later. That sucked because we had to pay cash which used a huge amount of our cash.
After going through baggage (way overweight but no fees) and security we finally got to the terminal. The new flight was at terminal three. I tried to call home but no one answered so I just left a voicemail with Corey. The flight itself was so so. We got a small lunch but I couldn’t sleep as it was uncomfortable. We had some turbulence which was scary as at one point we just dropped what seemed like a few feet.
Once we finally got off the plane we got our bag and met some of his family. His mom and several other relatives were there. Everyone was very nice and friendly. However, everyone thought I was Justin’s classmate and friend. Due to various reasons, it would have been way too complicated to bring out that we were much more than just “friends.” As such, everyone treated me good and as a guest. Anyway, his nephew was there and is nine years old. He knew very basic English and we taught him the word Uncle.
Due to the driving and it was a little hot and I was already hungry, I was starting to get sick. We dropped off our luggage at his teacher’s apartment where we would later sleep. After driving some more, Justin and I finally got out of the car and got something to drink at a KFC. We then walked to his Aunt’s apartment and visited them for a while. After staying there for a while, we left at about 7pm. We were picked up by his teacher’s husband and we went to eat at a restaurant. On the way, I started to cry actually as I felt very alone, had a headache, and was sick and tired but I wasn’t telling Justin. Earlier he had kept asking me how I was but I just kept saying that I was OK even though I really wasn’t. As he was visiting with family he hadn’t seen in a very long time, I didn’t want to ruin it. On the ride to the restaurant however, he talked with me and cheered me up and tried to make me feel better. I felt good enough when we got to the restaurant that I at least wasn’t crying but still didn’t feel that great. After starting to eat however, and being surrounded by good kind people, started to feel a lot better. Although they didn’t know English, his teacher and her husband asked me several questions to get me involved. Justin translated naturally. 
For reference, his teacher was his math teacher when he was a senior in high school. Her and her family were great to Justin’s family and had helped them greatly and they all became friends.
After dinner, his teacher and her husband and their child took us to Ping Li street. It’s a street designed to look like traditional chinese architecture. There are some blurry pictures below of it. We walked around the whole area and I bought Mom a doll that was from the sichuan province. We then went to his teacher’s apartment where we spent the night.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Today was a very long day. We didn’t actually get up until 10:30 as we just wanted to sleep until we naturally got up. After we did, we started to pack our bags because on Thursday we leave for Chengdu by plane. First thing we did was go to CCB again to try to get some money from Band of America. After a balance check, we found that we had 250 RMB less than what we should have. Decided that we would call BoA and check before getting out anything else.
We ate lunch at a noodle place which was very close to our hotel and it was good. You get a bowl that’s full of extremely hot soup and you put meat into it along with noodles and then just eat it all from the soup. The meat seemed like it was fried so Justin didn’t like it too much but the rest was good.
We then took a bus to the Summer Palace. This was cheap as it was only 50 RMB total for both of us and a map. I’ll post the pictures later, but it was a beautiful place. There weren’t too many people so it was quiet and peaceful. There is a huge lake with an island connected by a bridge. We didn’t go on that part, but it was visible from the whole place. We climbed up as there was a high point with a building containing a giant Buddha. We didn’t go in as that would have been another 10 and I’ll be seeing another Buddha that’s 10x bigger in Ya’an later. We got a little lost but wanted to go up, so we went off and started hiking up. Eventually we found the trail again and followed it to the highest point. We went into a building where no cameras are allowed out of respect. It contained a smaller budha that people could pray to. From up here we could see more of the city again.
We walked through many more buildings around the area and started to make our way back down. Once back at the bottom we took more pictures around the edge of the lake including some of a large stone boat, and a few of the sun setting behind some of the buildings as it was almost 5 pm by then. We ended up exiting a different way than where we went in which was interesting because we didn’t leave where Justin thought we would. We walked around through a poor area and ended up back at the entrance. We then took another bus to a Korean restaurant for Dinner.
As they see you going up to the restaurant, there’s two men who open the outer doors and then two women open the inner doors. Then a fancily-dressed woman takes you to a table as others greet you along the way. We went through the menu and decided on a few different meats. If you’re wondering, yes, Dog meat was on the menu, but no, we didn’t order any of it. They bring the food out and each table has it’s own coal-powered grill. They grill it right in front of you. We ate a lot and were actually too full to eat it all. This was the most expensive meal the two of us alone have eaten so far as it was 142 RMB. Comparatively, our lunch was 33.5 RMB. We then left and once we got to the bus-stop, I realized that I’d forgotten my hat that Mom made for me so we went back and got it. There was already a couple at our table so they had to move so they could get it from under the chairs.
We then took the bus back to the area by our hotel. There was a bookstore that Justin wanted to go to. It’s inside of a skyscraper and takes up three floors of it. It seems like it’s got to be bigger than a Barnes and Noble in America. We found something to help me learn Chinese – three sets of flash cards – like what you teach a child with. Books haven’t seemed to have helped with me and I’m a visual learner so this should work out nicely. We tried to find a Matlab book for Justin, but all the books were for older versions and weren’t really what he wanted. While checking out, we paid an extra 10 and got a DVD about China. We weren’t sure when buying it if it would even work in America as all DVD’s in China are Region 6 while America is Region 1. (Note: the DVD player in your house or computer is locked to Region 1. You can’t play anything from any other region and you can only change the region on your computer 5 times before it locks you to that region.) It turned out to be playable in all regions which was great.
We went home and started to pack. After packing a lot, we decided to take a nap. Of course, I didn’t hear the alarm so our 30 min nap turned into almost two hours. When we got up it was just about midnight, so a New Year. We then quickly packed the bag we’d be leaving in Beijing and at almost 2 am, left it at Peking University with one of his friends. Took another taxi back home and packed some more. I then took a nap for about an hour while Justin did some online banking that he needed to do. He then woke me up and went for a nap himself. I then started writing this post. It’s almost 5 am here already and we’re going to leave here at about 5:30 for the train. We’ll take the number 10 line and get off and transfer to the Airport Express. The number 10 will take us about 20 minutes but the Express will only be about 8 minutes as it goes very very fast and has no stops. We’re then going to take a shuttle to Terminal one and then at 7:50, leave for Chengdu.
I might be able to post tonight as we’re going to be with someone who might have Internet. Unfortunately, the unlock crack for my iPhone still hasn’t been released so I’m still stuck with a useless iPhone. I’ve got it in Airplane Mode so that all cellular services are off – it’s very costly to make a call or use data through AT&T over here. See you later!
Internet Access
Today might be the last blog post for a while. Uploading of more pictures is definitely going to be scarce as well. Today is the last day in our hotel in Beijing. We just got up at 11am because we decided last night to just sleep with no alarms.
I’ll be writing posts daily like normal, but they won’t be posted possibly until I get back to America. So Monday, January 12 there will be a huge number of pictures, video and posts completed.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
I woke up this morning to the sound of Skype – Mom was trying to call me at 6am. I answered it since I’d been asleep for almost 8 hours and was only half-asleep by then anyway. We chatted for a while and then each had to go. Just after we got done, Justin got up. The first day we were here Justin found a hat that was not too bad – it was on the ground but was perfectly clean. Yesterday we lost it – had to be somewhere in Walmart but had no clue where as we were through the whole thing. So he was sad about that still.
Anyway, we then went and got all our finances in order. A lot has gone on in the past few days and we hadn’t tracked the spending very well. After almost an hour, we finally had everything figured out and balanced so no money was missing and we knew where we’d spent everything.
After we left the hotel, we went to Peking University for lunch. It’s good that Justin still had his campus ID so we could get in. We went to one of the cafeteria’s and had lunch. Like most campus’, it was cheap but good. For 16 RMB, we got lunch for both of us and it was very good. We left the university and took a cab so that we could find the train to go to the Great Wall for the afternoon. However, both Justin and the driver didn’t know where the train was so we ended up being dropped off just off of a road. Turns out though that we were way in the wrong place plus the train wasn’t going to be back for over three hours. There’s a picture below of train tracks because we were walking from the taxi and ended up in the middle of no-where and had to cross to the other side of train tracks (across four sets) without tripping or getting run over. I don’t think that’s on the normal tour of Beijing!
After walking for quite a while longer, and jumping over fences, we ended up right at the Walmart entrance from yesterday. So, we went in and Justin checked with Customer Service to see if they found his hat. They didn’t. We then went and took the subway and transferred to a second train. After yet more walking, we finally found the bus that we needed to take – the number 919. The ride took about an hour and a half and went fairly quickly even with the uncomfortable seats (I’m 6′2″ and these seats are made to cram as many Asians in as possible. You do the math). When we got off it was after 3pm already so we really didn’t have that much time. It was super windy so while I was strugling with the wind to get to where the tickets are sold, Justin ran ahead and got them.
We finally got in and it was actually pretty cool. I have a fear of heights which is very annoying as I get vertigo and falling off of a huge mountain doesn’t sound like a good idea. However, this wasn’t that bad. The only bad part was the wind. It was bad enough on the ground, but when you’re up there and there’s almost nothing to break it, it is quite powerful. It wouldn’t be a trip up a very steep structure without me whining about how it’s too steep and how I’m not sure I want to keep going. However, I did anyway. It was worth it most of the way. However, once we were almost to the top of the highest point for where we were at, we decided that it was too dangerous to continue. It was a good decision because the wind was really picking up. Plus, because it was the winter, windy, cold, and at the end of the day, there were very few people actually on the Great Wall. This seemed good to me because then it’s not crowded and you can get better pictures, however if you think about it in terms of it being dangerous because if you fall, how long will it take for someone to be able to help you, it doesn’t seem as great. Once we decided to go down, it really wasn’t that bad. Going down is far far easier than going up, which surprised me. The main reason that it was easier though is because on the way up, we were going against the wind so on the way down, we were going with it and it was making things far easier.
All in all, we were on the wall for about an hour and a half. I wouldn’t go back unless it’s the perfect time of year and the conditions are just right – it’s just not worth it otherwise. It was a cool experience and really, it’s something that you have to do if you go to China, but it really wasn’t the best day to do it although you probably can’t tell from the pictures.
We took another number 919 bus back to Beijing which was very slow. Even other buses were passing the one we were on. After a few traffic jams, we got off the bus and took another which was much much faster. We got off of that and found another taxi who took us to where we were going to have dinner.
Justin and I met two of his friends at a restaurant and they were already there. Once we were called, we took our seats. Our dinner tonight would be a Chinese hot pot dinner. Justin and his friends went through the menu to decide what to order. The hot pot was good as it had a spicy side and a non spicy side. It was a good meal with several different kinds of meats and vegetables – all of which were cooked in the hot pot and then eaten in our own bowls of seasonings. The woman had known Justin since high school so she was the first person who he came out to so she has known Justin for quite a while. The guy didn’t know so he was told after the food was ordered and was perfectly fine with it. He seemed surprised, but I would have thought it was obvious just by looking at Justin. He’s more gay than me. Anyway, fast forward three and a half hours and dinner was over. We got the bill so that we could pay for it (172 RMB), but they both got to it before us. It was very very nice of them to do that for us. The woman said that Justin lent me to them for a while, so it was their payment for it – very nice people. They had spoken lots of Chinese during dinner, but often would come back and speak in English to let me know what was going on or to just chat in general with them.
After dinner we took another taxi back to the hotel. Justin fell asleep fairly quickly, but I wanted to take a shower first, write this post and also call some people. I called Dennis at work (Hi Dennis) and Corey but Corey was at work. I spoke with Dennis for a few minutes however. Since I’ve taken a shower and this blog post is done, it’s time to sleep. I’ll try uploading more pictures overnight so look for those later.
Update 1/13/2009 – Pics have been uploaded
Monday, December 29, 2008
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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