Hey!
So here we are in Beijing, the last stop on our two month long journey through China, and I for one can not believe I’m typing this sentence- the time really flew by. Making the switch from Hangzhou back into tourist-mode was not an easy one. Leaving Hangzhou to begin with was not something anyone enjoyed but I think we spent our final days in the city the right way. Thursday night was the banquet where we got the opportunity to thank everyone for everything they’ve done for us during our time in Hangzhou and we really could never have thanked everyone enough. I’m not sure how they all managed to make us feel so at home when we were really twelve timezones away from everything that we’re used to. Friday night we went to do some Karaoke again with all of the host siblings and Swan (from last year’s exchange group who my family hosted) which was a great final gathering of all of the hosts. Saturday we spent the entire day with our translator friends (the year three students who have applied to go to college in the US next year so they got to be our translators). Then sunday we were with our host families (I hiked up a mountain for some sight-seeing), and got on the train at 6:30 PM - leaving Hangzhou behind.
In spite of how much we all miss Hangzhou, Beijing is a city so seeped in it’s own history that there is no shortage of sites to see to keep ourselves excited. Yesterday we arrived on an early train and headed straight to the forbidden city. While I’d certainly never want to live there the forbidden city is undeniably amazing in how extensive and complex it is. After visiting the forbidden city we went to see the summer palace which again is a large area filled with ornate traditional red wooden buildings with rounded-tile roofs and intricate wood carvings/paintings lining each doorpost as well as where the roof meets the main structure. Today we visited a cloisonné workshop where we saw the tedious and complicated process through which this art is made. Then we saw the Ming dynasty tombs and had a great time admiring the huge stone statues of various animals which line the sides of the path to the tombs. After the tombs we went to what I’m sure will be one of the most memorable experiences of this trip- we hiked the great wall of China. During the hour and a half long drive to the wall I started to get worried that I was getting too excited for it, that the wall might be a disappointment what with all of the excitement from hearing about it for years. There was no need to worry. Standing on one of the many guard towers on the wall you can look in either direction and just see the wall, the great wall- the same one that is under your feet- trailing off into the distance cutting it’s line along the mountain tops, twisting and turning with the topography- it’s mind-blowing and beautiful. After walking along (and possibly having a snowball fight on) the great wall we headed back into the center of the city to see a relatively short show of Peking opera then called it a night and returned to our hotel room.
So I guess this is going to be it. Thank you everyone who read these blogs, I hope that reading about our journey helped to make China a little more understandable and a little less distant.
1 comment:
Sounds like an amazing journey, thanks for sharing!
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