This country just doesn’t quit!
They tell us that each student goes through a “Honeymoon Phase” with China, and mine is so strong you’d think Mao and I just pulled out of a Vegas chapel.
We went to the Great Wall two days ago. That place is absolutely out of this world. You have to drive about 2 hours to get to one of the prettier sections of the wall. Once you arrive you have to climb up and up and up to get there. The wall snakes around the tops of these enormous hills (almost mountain size, think Cerro de San Cristobal). The wall itself is beautiful with ramparts placed ever 500 meters or so. The stairs vary in size from teeny tiny all the way up to about 3 feet high. The end of one section shoots straight up into the air for almost 100 meters. This summer has been especially wet for Beijing, and the wall was literally in a cloud. I have never been sweatier in my life (Todd, I thought of you!) but the combination of being so overwhelmed and physically exhausted was fantastic, as Dan (and Ayn) says, everything emotional state has a kinesthetic counterpart, that day left me totally exhausted. This place really deserves the title Wonder of the World, but as Leslie pointed out, “The real wonder is how people actually lived up here”
Yesterday we went to Tian’anmen Square and downtown Beijing. Everyone complains that Beijing is dirty (smog like you can’t believe, shit spit and food in the gutters, grime, yelling, crowds, cars and bikes everywhere) and its true, even downtown, but I find it enthralling. The areas around Tian’anmen Square and Hohao Lake are pretty touristy and classed up (they have a McDonalds, and it has an Aloe flavor milkshake, three cheers for cultural differences!) but it’s still Beijing. This place is also humongous. Take the strip of high-rises on Sheridan near Hollywood and multiply it by 100 and you can start to imagine the size of this place, then take that area and cram in 13 million yelling Chinese people. I hope by the end of my stay I will be able to express why I love it so much, but all I can say is that I’ve never really had such a strong and positive reaction to a city before.
I want to write so much about Chinese manners and the pace of life and the food (the food! I could write thousands of pages about the food. I plan on returning to Chicago an obese man), but it will have to wait.
Today we are getting information on our 3 week tour. Thankfully (and very serendipitously) everyone I like is in tour group A and all the people that annoy me are in B (I’m an A-er). I’m hoping to get pictures online soon, but it could take a while. The trip will be from Wednesday (the 16th) until the first of September, and I’ll hopefully be able to update during that time. If not, just think camels, deserts, turpans, yakbutter and me wearing my Grandpa’s old fishing hat!
They tell us that each student goes through a “Honeymoon Phase” with China, and mine is so strong you’d think Mao and I just pulled out of a Vegas chapel.
We went to the Great Wall two days ago. That place is absolutely out of this world. You have to drive about 2 hours to get to one of the prettier sections of the wall. Once you arrive you have to climb up and up and up to get there. The wall snakes around the tops of these enormous hills (almost mountain size, think Cerro de San Cristobal). The wall itself is beautiful with ramparts placed ever 500 meters or so. The stairs vary in size from teeny tiny all the way up to about 3 feet high. The end of one section shoots straight up into the air for almost 100 meters. This summer has been especially wet for Beijing, and the wall was literally in a cloud. I have never been sweatier in my life (Todd, I thought of you!) but the combination of being so overwhelmed and physically exhausted was fantastic, as Dan (and Ayn) says, everything emotional state has a kinesthetic counterpart, that day left me totally exhausted. This place really deserves the title Wonder of the World, but as Leslie pointed out, “The real wonder is how people actually lived up here”
Yesterday we went to Tian’anmen Square and downtown Beijing. Everyone complains that Beijing is dirty (smog like you can’t believe, shit spit and food in the gutters, grime, yelling, crowds, cars and bikes everywhere) and its true, even downtown, but I find it enthralling. The areas around Tian’anmen Square and Hohao Lake are pretty touristy and classed up (they have a McDonalds, and it has an Aloe flavor milkshake, three cheers for cultural differences!) but it’s still Beijing. This place is also humongous. Take the strip of high-rises on Sheridan near Hollywood and multiply it by 100 and you can start to imagine the size of this place, then take that area and cram in 13 million yelling Chinese people. I hope by the end of my stay I will be able to express why I love it so much, but all I can say is that I’ve never really had such a strong and positive reaction to a city before.
I want to write so much about Chinese manners and the pace of life and the food (the food! I could write thousands of pages about the food. I plan on returning to Chicago an obese man), but it will have to wait.
Today we are getting information on our 3 week tour. Thankfully (and very serendipitously) everyone I like is in tour group A and all the people that annoy me are in B (I’m an A-er). I’m hoping to get pictures online soon, but it could take a while. The trip will be from Wednesday (the 16th) until the first of September, and I’ll hopefully be able to update during that time. If not, just think camels, deserts, turpans, yakbutter and me wearing my Grandpa’s old fishing hat!
posted by Tim | 9:06 PM
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