Well, this past weekend, I left school directly after the last bell rang. . rode the student bus home. . .grabbed my bag and took off for the train station with Erica the Roommate and Julie the Student Teacher. We met Mark the Other Student Teacher and Sam and Amy at the train station to hop on the bullet train for BEIJING!!!!
It was such a great weekend! Erica, Julie and Mark went to go see the sights because Julie and Mark are only here for a short time. I travelled with them but I went to Beijing to see my friend, Janna. She's been teaching English there for the past two years at a university. Since I knew that I will probably be going to Beijing again, I decided that this weekend would just be about hanging out with Janna.
So after sitting on the train for 5.5 hours, we finally got to Beijing and I had to take a taxi to Janna's school. It was slightly unnerving climbing into a taxi and showing the driver some Chinese characters and hoping that I would end up in the right place. But I did and it was all good.
Saturday morning, Janna took me to the Temple of Heaven which is her favorite place to go. It's this huge park with three temples for various things in the middle. All over the park, there were groups of people, large and small, doing various activities like dancing, singing, tai chi and jazzercise. It never ceases to amaze me ho
w people here will just find a place in the middle of a large walkway and start whatever activity they are inclined to do. They are all doing some sort of physical activity and they always in groups as in the picture to the left.So we walked around to all three temples and through the parks. I'm posting pictures at www.picasaweb.google.com/ekshimer. I tried to upload them here, but the internet is being tricky tonight. It was really cool to see this piece of Chinese history and to see all the people who were there. It's hard to describe the temples themselves, I would recommend checking out the pictures.
Afterwards, we made our way to lunch which was Uh-Mazing! We went to Pete's Tex-Mex and I had a real, almost authentic burrito that was ginormous along with a Blizzard-esque ice cream treat that was mint Oreo and heavenly.
To work off dinner, we walked to the Silk Market and did some shopping. I bought a coat that makes me feel like the blue Power Ranger. . .but now I can match my dad in his Yellow Ranger motorcycle gear. I also bought several DVDs and some jewelry. I bought a new ring to wear instead of my Mexico turtle ring that I've been wearing for the last two years. It was kind of wierd to replace it, but I decided that it's time for a new chapter and I found a really cool China ring.
After such a busy day, we headed back to the apartment and chilled for a few minutes before heading off to dinner. We met up with some other new teachers who came from Cedarville and went to a Dai restaurant. Apparently, the Dai are an ethnic group that live in southwest China. All I know is that the pineapple rice that we had for dinner at the restaurant is enough of a reason for me to go back to Beijing. And the best part of the pineapple rice is that it actually came served in a pineapple!!! How cool is that!
Sunday had a really relaxing start.. We slept in and then made our way to starbucks for breakfast before heading to fellowship. After fellowship, we went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch and I went back to the apartment to pack up. However, that was the end of the relaxation. Once I left the apartment, I grabbed a taxi and headed to Tiananmen Square to meet back up with Erica, Julie and Mark. Again, it is unnerving to point to chinese characters and hope the taxi driver takes you to the right place. But I got there and had my first moment of really feeling like an outsider. I mean, ever since I've been here, I have realized that I look different than the majority of people that walk past me on the street and that I can't really communicate with them because I don't know Chinese. But I think because Tiananmen and Forbidden City carry such historical significance for the Chinese people, it really emphasized, to me, the cultural differences that we face.
Once I met up with Julie, Mark and Erica, it was basically the end of the trip. We went back to the guest house where they were staying and waited for our car to pick us up to take us to the airport.
At the airport, we checked in with no problems and grabbed some Burger King for dinner which was really great because I have missed their onion rings (And it was comforting to know that my observation holds true even in China. .. you always get a fry mixed in with your onion rings).
There was a slight snafu as I went through security to go back to the gate. I was nervous that they would confiscate the cookie mixes that I had in my carry on. . .and, sure enough, as my bag came out of the x-ray, the scanner guy stopped it and called me over. He asked if I had keys in my bag which was the case. So he asked me to take them out which was slightly confusing until I pulled out my keys and remembered that one of my key chains is an empty shell casing from a shotgun that I shot on Labor Day in Michigan. This was very confusing to my Chinese friends in the airport but they gave it back and let me move on without any more trouble. I was slightly embarassed, but upon more careful reflection, I decided that I was surprised that I haven't had more trouble with that key chain which has been to Mexico, Germany and various other American cities with me.
Well, I'm going to go put captions on my pictures so that if you do decide to look at them, you'll know what you're looking at.
I'd really like to send out another post with a general life-update, but as you all know life is crazy. And for any other teachers, you know how the end of the quarter and parent-teacher conferences are. . .which was last week and this week.
Much Beijing love!
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