SUNNY'S RETURN :)

After a lot of effort we managed to pick up our bags and make our way to the hotel where ACT, the large group of Americans we started with in Shanghai, would be staying. We would be freeloading off them for a few days (free hotel, and tentative touring costs). Of course they weren’t there when we arrived, but they showed a couple of hours later. Turns out they were going to Tiananmen, so we trekked along for the ride. We had hoped to see Mao (in preservative jelly) but the lines were too long. In the large group Jackie and I suddenly spotted Sunny and started yelling with excitement. Sam hadn’t yet noticed Sunny, so she came up behind him and covered his eyes. Isaac, who was also there, was yelling that a monkey was on Sam’s back, and for a split second (Sam later told me) he did think it was a monkey! We were all so happy to see Sunny, who apparently had convinced the company to take her to Beijing (she had never been there in her whole life, having grown up near Shanghai). After swapping stories with others in the large group, we ditched them and went to the Forbidden City. Forbidden City is huge and very spacious. In some ways it reminded me of Versailles (the share size). There were, unfortunately, a million tourists there and I was running on no sleep, so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I might have. We slept the rest of the day/night, and traded stories with other members of ACT, that had been in different cities….

A few people had been to the hospital for various illnesses. One other girl had an encounter with the police (in a city all by herself). Some people had to teach a million hours and a day, while others only taught two hours a day, if that. The group up by Russia had the locals follow them all day, never really leaving them unattended, for fear something might happen to them. One group sounded very much like the Real World, MTV.

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