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.