Greetings from Beijing!!

Apologies for the late post- wi-fi is apparently very scarce here!

Besides the Internet connection, I’m having an excellent time abroad in Asia so far!

We ended our 13 hour plane ride (extremely long) on Tuesday afternoon and arrived in Beijing around 3:45 pm. We got to our very nice hotel in a little over an hour from the airport.  One thing I immediately was that the traffic in Beijing is no joke- easily some of the most insane traffic I have ever seen.  We met some students from the Beijing University at our hotel and they ate dinner with us the first night.  We had been chatting with a couple of them on an app called WeChat over the course of our fall term, so it was nice to finally put names to faces.  They were all extremely nice and energetic! It was very interesting to learn all about their lives and their experiences in colleges.  We had a traditional Chinese meal called “hot pot” which is a boiling hot pot of water on the table that you dip meat and vegetables into.  It was very unique, but I liked it!  The students also taught us some traditional games that they play with their families at dinner.  One thing that immediately differed from my experience in Greece and Italy last year is that almost nothing here is in English.  We were very grateful to have the students with us to decipher the menu, otherwise we would not have been able to order or communicate with the restaurant workers.

The next morning we drove to the Great Wall of China, which was even more incredible than I could have imagined.  We took a cable car the top which overlooked an extremely beautiful scenic view.  The areas of the Great Wall that we walked varied in slopes, and some parts had steps while others were just more of a hill.  Some areas were also significantly steeper than others.  All of this was set in the mountains, as well.  Overall the experience was amazing, although very windy.  The cable cars stopped running because it became too windy, so we had to hike down to a meeting point which took about 40 minutes.  This has definitely been my favorite part of the trip so far.  Some other notable moments from this day were visiting the park of the Beijing 2008 Olympics and being able to recognize some of the buildings I saw on TV when watching the Olympics, going to a traditional Beijing temple, and seeing a jaw-dropping acrobatics show.  We definitely packed a lot into this day, and I am still very tired from the flight and constant traveling. Some of the food is hit or miss, but for the most part I am enjoying it as well!

We have one more day in Beijing and then we leave for the next province.  I will try to do a separate post for pictures (hoping they will go through) and I will hopefully be able to post more!