Thursday 14 August 2008 Okay, my heart still aches and I still tear up when I think about flying away from Beijing this evening, but that’s nothing that a healthy dose of denial won’t help! To answer all of your comments… Nicaragua updates will be here, on TravelBlog, not on xanga. Yes, we did indeed go to boxing and it was AWESOME! More on that in a sec. Abeyta, that SUCKS that Mexico won’t show proper Olympic coverage…. in case you didn’t hear - and obviously didn’t get to watch, the Chinese beat USA for the gold in women’s gymnasti [View Full Entry]

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LESSON FROM A BOEING 747 Apparently, even on airplanes people congregate in the bathroom. You can’t exactly huddle together inside an airplane bathroom and tell secrets. Instead, you gather outside the tiny bathroom in the little area the stewardesses use to turn their carts. When I walked back I questioned the number of people standing there, but factored in the length of the flight and the number of people there. After 10 minutes and no one had gone in or out, I started to get impatient. But there was another woman who had been there first on my side, and a [View Full Entry]

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It’s my last night in China for who knows how long. And it makes me sad. Yes, I am embarking on the next great adventure by becoming a PCV in Nicaragua. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to miss Beijing like whoa. Or that it’s not going to be VERY STRANGE to go home and see “my” city on TV and watch American athletes competing instead of being inundated with Chinese athletes’ prowess. I like China. I love Beijing. I love the food… especially gong bao ji ding and Xinjiang [musl [View Full Entry]

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They definitely call it the Forbidden City for a reason! On our first day without Li, we started out confident that we would be able to find our way around the Beijing. Our mission for the day was to see the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. The city has Olympic volunteers on almost every block there to help people. Well, we learned today that they aren't exactly the most helpful volunteers we have come across! After 2 buses - and 1 1/2 hours later, we finally arrived at the Forbidden City (or at least what we thought was the Forbidden City). [View Full Entry]

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After almost 24 hours of travelling (thanks to a 5 hour layover in D.C.) we've made it to Beijing. The flight was uneventful, so we will get on to more exciting things! Contrary to what we heard before coming, we don't notice a huge difference in the air quality, but there is a constant haze over the city. We are staying at Beijing Institute of Technology, where Li (Sara's friend) lives, at the Guesthouse on Campus and have our own room and bathroom (complete with A/C!). It worked out great - and is cheap!(the theme for our trip) For our ceremonial [View Full Entry]

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Today, Bobo woke me up by poking my head until I opened my eyes. I am going with my uncle in the morning to see swimming at the Water Cube. I woke up at about 7:30. As usual, breakfast, toast and peaches. I thought of bringing my Chinese flag to swimming even though China isn’t the best at it. We left at 8:00 and took the regular route to the Olympic Green. My uncle didn’t know how to get there, so I took him with me. Since it was Monday, everybody had to go to work. The subways were crowded with [View Full Entry]

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So yesterday Olivia asked me if I had any interest in going to a whole sale clothes market with her today, and I heartily agreed. Its not that I like to shop, or that I like clothes at all, but I was excited to see the market and I was excited to hang out with Olivia, Issac, and Nichole. The market opens early and closes early so we decided to meet there at 10 am. We got up this morning, but didn't end up leaving the house till around 10. We took the bus to the market, which was my first [View Full Entry]

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A day in the life: (Night before the day in the life: Notified by friend that she has 2 tickets for women's gymnastics the following night.) 7:00 AM - 5:50 PM: Hang around office, surf the internet, research ashrams in India, attend useless meetings, pretend to work, pretend to care. 5:50 PM - 6:16 PM: Try to manage the dispatch of buses and guests for an off-site dinner. Get into arguments with clients because they are once again torturing my local staff. 6:16 PM - 6:41 PM: Console client as she breaks down into tears. Send her to room with instructions [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday we went to Gulou and walked around shopping and chillin. Finally got to eat at the Drum and Bell, which have heard about for years and never found; excellent food and rooftop. Ben shopped for games while his sister took photos of bicycles and the streets. Stopped at Ray's cafe, NLGX, when the thunder turned into a downpour. Enjoyed the rest of the walk in the post-rain afternoon light. Went to No Name Bar to have a drink before jazz, but the rain started up again and we ended up walking home instead. [View Full Entry]

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So Yesterday Olivia made plans with her cousin to take me to a part of town that he finds very interesting, and that they thought I would like. It is the part of Beijing that still has all the old style buildings. The plan was to eat lunch at McDonalds (which by the way I just realized I was spelling very wrong, and I realized this because this morning I was reading my chinese textbook, and it has the chinese word for McDonalds as a vocab word. I read the english and went "Oh so thats how you spell that, whoops!" [View Full Entry]

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