Day 8: Beijing

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The group left today for separate directions: Helen left for Harbin; Mariah, Ming, and Jon went to Guangzhou; Leo, Jackie, the teachers and I all traveled to Beijing. Lisa and Dr. Hua went with us on the bus ride to the airport and said goodbye to us at the security checkpoint.

We boarded the plane and had to wait two hours for clearance from the tower. The airline never gave us further explanation but I wonder if it had to do with the weather in Beijing. When we came in for our landing, the plane went through quite a bit of turbulence. The trees were bending like mad and leaves were blowing all over the highway after we left the airport. The temperature is cooler here, with a high in the low 60s. Our taxi driver took us past the Olympic sites on the way to our hotel and then we had a brief rest before leaving for dinner.

A local graduate student, Yuehua, is serving as our tour guide for these next three days. She selected tonight’s restaurant because it’s somewhere she takes out-of-town friends and it’s inexpensive. It was confusing at first for us because many of our meals have been pre-planned so we didn’t know what to do. But the food was great. We did a pretty good job selecting the many dishes by looking at the photos and English titles. Once the bill arrived, Yuehua recalculated the total to make sure they gave us the right amount. We thought that they made a mistake, too. The total for several dishes that fed 8 people was only 248 yuan = $37.

We finished dinner then walked to the Olympic Green, about 5-10 minutes away. The temperature dropped even further and the wind remained strong. The entire Olympic Green is a rather large area that encompasses several city blocks. There is a canal located across the street from the National Stadium (Bird’s Nest). We walked down a winding pathway along the water and captured some photos of the Linglong Pagoda, which has seven stories. NBC broadcast its coverage of the Games from this tower. We eventually made it to the fenced in area with the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube. We had to go through a security checkpoint. Even though it was after 8:00pm and bitterly cold and windy, we still saw a few hundred people walking around. The Linglong Pagoda has open spaces between each one of its stories, and the entire structure lights up in a constantly changing array of rainbow colors.

The Bird’s Nest stadium is just a amazing structure. So is the Water Cube. That building is much larger than I had anticipated. And I didn’t realize that the two buildings are adjacent to each other. We walked around the park for a short while then headed back towards our hotel. Yuehua took pity on us and got cabs just outside the exit gate. Again, the prices are so low. The cab ride was 10 yuan = $1.50.

We were all tired after a long week of constant activity so we all went to our rooms. Jackie starts at her lab bright and early tomorrow while the rest of us head towards the Great Wall.

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Photos

close-up of the Water Cube
The bubbles are several feet in diameter.

Comments

[Mariah Beth]

Awesome despite the weather
Those pictures are great. Have fun at the Great Wall and tell everyone that I said hello.