beijing vol. I

Well we are back from our October holiday adventure. This year our destinations were Beijing and Qingdao. (Last year we visited Yichang and Xi'an.) We began our journey Friday night on a train to Beijing, and our spirits were high as we had never visited the capital city before. We arrived at about 1:00 in the afternoon on Saturday and went straight to work. I will describe to you now the events of our October Holiday and each one will have its own heading! This will happen over several blog entries.

Sneaky Pizza

We checked into our hostel and decided that we would split into two groups (there were six of us). The first group (Megan, Trent & Angelyn) was going to try to get us bus tickets to Qingdao, and the rest of us (Me, Jessica & Finn) were going to get a snack before dinner. This all started out until innocently until Jessica spotted a Papa John's across the street from the hostel. Let it be known that this is my official assigning of blame to Jessica. I thought about it all week and I've decided that it works out best for everyone involved if Jessica assumes 100% of the blame. I know that she would agree. So as I was saying Finn and I begrudgingly agreed to go eat pizza and we all made a pact not to tell the others the bad thing we had done. (When you live in China, excluding someone from pizza is the closest thing to a mortal sin.) The pact didn't last. Deductive reasoning shed light on our dark secrets and the others soon found out.

My Father Owns a Pipe Factory

So we all met back up at silk street. Silk street is the bargaining Mecca of China. Its not really a street, but more of a giant mall full of little shops that will quote you outrageous prices for very inexpensive items. It's a blast. We all found something we wanted and most of us bought it. We bought dresses for all of my nieces. We also bargained for pearls that we really didn't want (and didn't buy) and found out that you can scrape pearls with a knife to see make sure they aren't made of plastic.

Chairman Mao

Our last stop on Saturday night was Tiananmen Square, the famed site of the event which shall not be named of 1989. Of course there is much more history to this square but the events of that year loom like a shadow. We took some really nice night photos of the square and the giant Mao portrait that hangs there. It really is a beautiful spot at night. We were all extremely tired at the end of the day so we didn't waste much time once we returned to the hostel. We just went to bed.

The Moral

So I will try to give you something I learned from each set of events. From this set of events I learned perhaps two truths. 1. Never eat pizza without everyone in the group. 2. If you're bargaining for more than one item, only bargain for one item until you feel like you have the lowest possible price for one. Then you can get a discount on that price if you buy more than one. So I guess those don't carry any great moral value (except maybe the first one). Stay tuned for beijing vol. II.

John