Day 3

Day 3 was very busy! We got up and went straight to the Forbidden City. This is a place where the dynasties of China used to stay and common people were not allowed in. This place was huge!! It was also really awesome. There are 9,999 rooms in the city and over 900 buildings still left. When walking through, it felt like I was walking in a huge maze. You couldn't really see much around you so you weren't for sure where exactly you were going. I liked seeing all of the traditional Chinese buildings and it was crazy knowing how old those buildings were. It took quite a long time to get from end to end of the city.

After walking through the Forbidden City, we walked past Tiananmen Square. Tiananmen Square has been a place of many historical events in China. It now serves as a meeting place and recently been the home to some student protests and is used a lot for political events.

After walking through Tiananmen Square we at lunch at a traditional Chinese restaurant like the Tai one we went to only a lot nicer. They had some strange dishes that they brought out to us. One was a whole fish, head and tail included. Sandra, our instructor, ate the head and another student ate the tail. Gross!! I didn't like too much that they had. I liked some chicken and that's about it.

After lunch we walked along this strip mall that seemed to be deserted because it had just been built for the Olympics but now the economy is not so good so no one can afford to rent it out. After walking down this street we got to the end and saw these funny looking bike things that people could sit in and they would take you around the city. Everyone took these little things to a place called the Pearl Market. They said it would be 20 RMB. I rode with a guy in our group named Nick. Our driver ended up dropping us off across the street from everyone else and when we went to pay him 20 RMB he said it was 300. Then we gave him 300 and he said 300 per person. So, we ended up giving him 600 RMB for the ride. He jipped us!!! Nick and I totally were not thinking for some reason and everyone else in the group paid 20 RMB total for their ride. This was before I had gotten the chance to really wheel and deal with people so I wasn't thinking straight for some reason. I was sooo mad! It really wasn't that many USD but it was still the fact that he did that to us.

Anyways, after that ride we went to the Pearl Market. The Pearl Market is where you can pretty much get anything fake that you want. They have electronics, shoes, bags, clothes, jewelry, and many other things. For anything you buy though you have to banter back and forth with them to get the price you want. They start out really high then you have to bring them down. It's actually pretty fun to see how low you can get them to go. If they say they don't want your price you just walk away then they will yell at you to come back. This place was 4 floors high with the floors filled by 10X10 little spots of people selling a bunch of stuff. I loved it!!

We ended up going to a Kung Fu show after the Pearl Market. It was really funny because everyone was exhausted and people were falling asleep during it. It was a bunch of music playing and, in my opinion, wasn't that exciting so I did start to fall asleep also. After the show everyone was exhausted and we went back to our rooms.

Day 2

Day 2 started off with another lecture from Pang Jin about the Chinese economy. He talked about their economic growth, some of the challenges of their economy, and the prospects of the Chinese economy. At one point during the presentation he told us that the average annual salary for someone living in Beijing is 50,000 RMB. This only comes out to about $7500 per year. I found this number shocking. I had no idea that's what the circumstances were here.

We went to the Olympic site after our lecture. We got to go inside the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube. These were some pretty neat places to see. I especially like the Water Cube. Inside of the Bird's Nest we took some group pictures and it was funny because a bunch of Chinese people started crowding around us taking our picture also as if we were the tourist attraction or something. Chinese people have some kind of fascination with Americans. There are always people wanting to take pictures with us.

After the Olympic site some of us split up and I ended up going to a Japanese restaurant with some of the people in the group. This had to of been the best food I had eaten so far since I got on the airplane from Chicago. I got chicken that was really good. We had a couple drinks at the restaurant and then after that we went to a really close bar for just one drink. It's really interesting having to order what you want and not being able to talk to someone and tell them what you because of a language barrier. I ended up getting back to campus around 11:30 then going to bed.

Day 1

The flight over was miserable especially the 13 hour flight from Chicago to Tokyo. We had to stay on the plane an extra hour after we landed because they had to check everyone's paperwork to make sure no one had the swine flu. I then waited in Tokyo airport for 4 hours. I think I slept for an hour of that. The flight from Tokyo to Beijing I slept the whole time, which was about 4 hours. I arrived on Tsinghua campus as 11 pm their time and checked into my room at about 11:30. I hadn't really seen much of China yet because I went straight to bed when I got in.

The next morning we had our first lecture. This lecture was about the history and culture of China and it was given to us by Fang Zhaohui. There were some interesting topics he discussed such as the history of China, some major events that have taken place, the communist government, the Chinese world view, and their language.

After the lecture each student got paired up with a Tsinghua student and we got a tour of the campus. I was paired with a girl but I don't remember her name. She was a communications major and spoke very well English. We first got to go to a dining hall that was four stories high and eat lunch with our student. It took me a while to pick out what I wanted for lunch because there were many different choices. After eating lunch I realized that Chinese food in China isn't really that much like Chinese food in America. Real Chinese food is much more bland that American Chinese food. After we ate, then came the tour. She took me to the oldest part of campus that had the traditional Chinese artitecture. This part of campus was beautiful. They had parks, ponds, flowers, and lots of greenery. It was much more prettier than any other campus I have ever seen. The campus is also a whole lot bigger than Purdue. Everyone here rides bikes all over because it's too far to walk to places.

After the tour, we had a couple hours of free time then it was off to dinner. We ate at a Tai restaurant called Banana Leaf. This was a restaurant where there were some singers and dancers and people playing intruments to entertain the people eating. It was a pretty cheese place. They brought out our food in big servings and everyone ate out of the servings. The singers ended up getting our whole group up dancing in the restaurant. It was pretty funny and interesting. After dinner I went back to the room because I was exhausted and went to bed.