Day 1- Chinese Food and Friends

After a surprisingly restful night of sleep, on a rock hard Chinese bed, I woke up and got ready for my first day in Beijing. We stayed in a really nice 4 star hotel that provided a huge breakfast buffet. The breakfast was definitely unique as I do not think that I have ever eaten lo mein and salad as a morning meal. There were more traditional options as well (eggs, potatoes, and cereal), however the more traditional things like noodles, steamed buns, and veggies were available. As a person who does not like sweet breakfast or cereal this was right up my alley.

We started the day by gong to the Beijing International University to meet with Chinese international business students and hear a presentation. It was awesome talking with the students and discovering similarities and differences. The presentation itself took forever and was pretty boring but informative in some ways. The university provided a banquet for us complete with an unending stream of new dishes and beer. Lunch was delicious and for the most part very normal. Fish boiled in oil and served kind of like a soup is very common here and despite my pickiness with fish, I gave it a whirl. The Chinese are so friendly and complimentary that I may or may not have grown a large head. My Chinese friends Susan did not hold back her compliments which included, "you are so beautiful, like a movie star" and "oooo your hair, so pretty". Susan was a very sweet girl but a little over the top with her affections, it soon became a running joke among the group members.


Brad, my travel buddy, and I




Susan, Me, Alex, and Claire

Susan and I

After leaving the university we went to the 2008 Olympic Village to see the Bird's Nest stadium and the Water Cube aquatic center. It was cool to see the buildings, however I didn't watch the 2008 Olympics and it was FREEZING. After 20 minutes in the driving wind we were all ready to head back to the comfort of the bus. The evening activity was to go to the Pearl Market, a famous place for cheap pearls and all knock offs, to do some shopping and a lot of haggling. As a non-Mandarin speaker (really, I butcher the 3 phrases I do know), I was nervous to consider haggling with people who did not speak English. It was a little awkward at first but after a couple of times Alex and I really got the hang of it. After about an hour and half we met up with the rest of the group only to discover that we had missed out on an entirely different side of the market that had all of the bags, shoes, and clothing we were interested in. Alex and I left the market dissatisfied with our purchases (particularly 3 overpriced, oversized Zara scarves over which we had immediate buyer's remorse), exhausted, and regretful!

This is our adorable tour guide, Wendy

We ate dinner as a group and somehow managed to find a restaurant and successfully order. The food was great and included a lot of dumplings (which are my favorite)! On the way to the restaurant several of the guys braved the street food and proceeded to eat snake, silk worms, and chicken hearts all neatly skewered on sticks. All of it was disgusting but the general consensus was the the silk worms were the most horrific. Consider this, the remaining silk worms were offered to a homeless person and he quickly rejected them! Exhausted we headed back to the hotel and eventually out in the neighborhood to explore. Exploring was mostly fruitless but it did provide an interesting and sleep deprived night!