Beijing: Day 3

Sunday was also a pretty quiet day, but we did manage to take a few pictures. So get excited for that further down. 

Sunday started with a group trip to church. It was easiest to get to church just by taking the subway, but it involved taking 3 different trains so a lot of our group was incredibly nervous. 

Once again I cannot refrain from singing the praises of the Beijing subway system. Not only is it nice and clean, it keeps the track far away from the passengers. Basically, if you want to get on the track at some stations it is pretty impossible and at the rest you really have to work for it. So basically, it did wonders at relaxing my irrational fear of being violently shoved onto the tracks and killed or incapacitated While You Were Sleeping Style. Another thing that is super nice is that the cars have a computerized voice letting you know in Chinese and English about each stop. Seriously, there was so much English I think it would be really hard to get lost... unless you didn't know the name of the station you were looking for.

So anyway, traveling to church was pretty funny because at each place a group of like 35 white people would gather around and travel in a pack to the next line.

We got to church just fine and we didn't lose anyone. But, because we are such a large group they wanted to make sure we got there with plenty of time to spare... So we ended up hanging out around the building for an hour. The picture below was us trying to send a picture proving our existence to our parents at home, when we found wifi at church, but we lost the signal before we could get the email sent.

After church we separated from the pack because we are subway pros and got home in record time. On the way home we decided to stop and get some food at a place near our hotel. After we had ordered and paid, I noticed an interesting sign hidden in the corner. It appears that Beijing also does a letter grading system for their restaurants. You know just like New York and Los Angeles. This place had a C. Needless to say the food did not sit well and I got sick. It solidified my belief that there are too many restaurants in the world to waste your time, money or health at anything other than an A. 

After that we went to the 2008 Olympic Plaza. Below you'll see a hotel there. We later found out it was built to look like a dragon, but at the time we just thought it had a unique design to it.

The Bird's Nest

So this statue was pretty cool and we realized she is a GIANT. Do you see how big she would be if she stood up. Also, she had bigger feet than Chad so we took a picture.

While at the Park, I got a sweet Batman themed slap bracelet watch that if you look closely you might see on me in other posts. It almost makes up for missing out on the Mao watch. I don't quite know where it is now, but we haven't exactly unpacked yet...

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Beijing: Day 2

Day 2 was a much more restful day in Beijing for us, we only took one picture and it's kinda dumb, sorry! We started our morning off with a bit of Language training. It was super helpful for us because they taught us how to say things like "How much does that cost?" and "not spicy". It's amazing how learning the following phrases will really get you far in China, and I assume in any country where you don't know the language.

Hello

Numbers and how to count to 100

How much does that cost?

Not spicy

Thank you

That's pretty much all we know in Chinese still, but we use it allll the time. 

After classes we had a group lunch. This was when I learned that not all adults know how to use chopsticks. Chad and I were at a table with about 6 other people and only a few of them knew how to use them, 2 were trying to and 2 others were just plain not interested in learning how to. Pretty much whenever I use chopsticks now I think of those 2 and wonder how the heck they are surviving here. 

Then we went to a HUGE market. Somewhat similar to the famous Pearl Market. Talk about sensory overload. When we finished there I wanted to just go sit in our hotel room with my eyes closed and in complete silence. Across the way from the market we saw something that made us laugh a lot. It is pictured below.

It really was a wonder to behold though (shopping, not the Hooters, though it was pretty impressive as well). 5 floors of all sorts of shopping. They had pretty much anything you could ever want. In the end we bought me a pair of Toms (about $8... if you look at them right next to a real pair of Toms you can tell they're fake, but if you don't you would never know) and a red "Dolce and Gabbana"  hooded pea coat (about $40, and the quality is quite good). Chad just got a nice, automatic, chronograph Tag Heuer watch that was also about $40 and you can only tell it's a fake when you look and the back and it says "200 mteers sapphir crytal Swiss made since" and doesn't have a date.

After all that we were so exhausted we went back to our hotel room and skipped dinner to sleep. I am pretty sure we got about 13 hours of sleep that night. A glorious and well deserved rest.

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