China in a nut shell!

So in China, we visited many temples, villages, markets and tried many things that I couldn't even imagine myself doing. I ate many things that I couldn't even imagine eating (sea horse, scorpion, ox tongue, pigeon, mutton, and god knows what 'meat and vegetables' is equivalent to...). I saw a lot of things that would be completely not be acceptable or would be incredibly unusual here in the states like crowds of bikers everywhere you went, people selling things everywhere you go, people throwing their children at you asking you to take a picture with them like you were a celebrity, people cutting hair on the side of the street (which usually would not be too unusual but they would take the hair and stuff it into the drains from underpasses and well everywhere actually. We spent time at the police station trying to convince them that we were not terrorists invading their country (apparently you are suppose to register with the government when you get there... and apparently there was a sign on our door telling us that... but we don't read Chinese so you can imagine how that went...)

Another thing that was really cool was during the first few weeks we were there the Euro Cup was going on... and granted we were in Asia... there were many European people there so we went to this restaurant with some people we met and watched the Sweden vs. Spain game. It was fun because EVERYONE was decked out in jerseys and colors (well everyone but us) and the group we joined was all rooting for Sweden. They looked at us expecting us to choose sides but assumed we were going to take their side but we all left and confessed we were all for Spain! ha ha.

For the 4th of July some of us girls stayed in Beijing and decided to go to The Hard Rock Cafe! It was a lot of fun and we decked out in red, white and blue and I don't think anyone knew what we were celebrating which was different for me considering I have spent every 4th of July at my cabin for as long as I can remember. We decked ourselves out in red, white and blue before camp it was fun because a lot of the kids that weren't American were asking us what we were celebrating and we got to explain to them what the 4th of July was.

And although there are many wonderful things to do in Beijing... I have to say that one of my favorite memories was a day that I took to myself and ventured out. I woke up early one morning and went to the bike rental place where we always rented our bikes and picked one up. I had a map and picked out all of the places I wanted to see and just took off. I probably road over 30 miles that day but it was an absolutely beautiful day which was completely out of the norm considering I probably saw a total of three sunny days with no clouds. Usually I was fighting to breath in all of the smog. Anyways this day was breath taking and I started out riding in a complete circle around the city checking every book store possible looking for the book New Moon (the second book in the Twilight series) and I probably look at about 6 book stores and every single one had the first book and the third but for some reason all of the stores were sold out of the second one. So I gave up and moved on...
I had missed the trip to see the big pagoda at Bahi Park and so I found that on my map and went to check it out. It was so beautiful and the temples were just glistening in the sun light. The park was a big U shape river with buildings and parks on the outside an the big pagoda was in the center. I went and strolled around enjoying the locals that were playing instruments and dancing in one of the parks and viewed some of the temples and other buildings around the outside. Then I got on a little boat that crossed the river and hiked up the stairs (it always seems that in Asia you have to wake up hundreds if not thousands of stairs to get to your destination) and was able to view the pagoda. The best part was that if you paid an extra 3 Kwai (like 45 cents) you could go to the top of a tower parallel to the pagoda and you could view the whole city. It was absolutely gorgeous!

Now the part you have all been waiting for... The Olympics...
Being in Beijing leading up the the games was an adventure in itself. We made daily trips to the markets and when it got closer to the games, we noticed that as well as the increase in tourists that were coming into the city, the markets tried to be sneaky and bumped up their prices and for a pair of shoes that you could have gotten for 50 Kwai (eeh like $7) you could not get for any less than 100 Kwai! It was horrible and even with the vendors that we went to all the time (the people that knew who we were) wouldn't even hook us up!
The city was expanding and new buildings were shooting up everywhere as well as signs, paintings, souvineers and anything you could imagine. The city was trying to clean up its streets and skys believe it or not. They were actually shooting chemicals up into the sky to force it to rain, which in turn would apparently clear up some of the smog. In reality it simply created thunder storms, lightning and acid rain! It was insane! We had some of the worst storms and the thing was, no one was scared at all. I was terrified to be outside with lightning but no one seemed to be the least bit phased at the sight of it. It would literally start dumping rain, and being from Seattle... I have never seen anything like it before. I am assuming our random sunny days were the result of these storms and it did clear up the sky but it would only last for one day max. All of the chemicals and the Chinese trying to play god actually backfired and the day of the first Olympic event was one of the worst day I saw while I was there.
We were able to have the Friday of opening ceremony off work but we were scheduled to fly out the next morning and had to be at the airport at 5, so we were not able to actually attend any of the games. For opening ceremony we were able to go to The Place (a mall) and stood in line for two hours trying to get tickets to attend this Coca Cola sponsored event with huge screens showing the ceremony. We brought face paint and were painting our faces as well as the locals faces getting ready for the event. After we got the tickets we had to hand out around there for a few hours and being that we had the coolest sun glasses on the face of the planet, we were getting interviews after interviews by people from all over the world including two from Georgia and Minnesota.
So we watched opening ceremony and it was a blast and eventually met up with our bosses at this bar up town which was incredibly expensive and only sold one thing. Grey Goose at about 1400 Kwai a bottle ($200). So needless to say we felt extremely out of place in our work out shorts, college t-shirts and face paint all over.
Even though we were not able to attend the actual games, we were able to experience the atmosphere, represent the states and pretend to be some sort of Olympic athletes (most of the time we were Olympic speed walkers... yah don't ask). The two guys that I was with this summer stayed and were able to attend some of the games and so we got to hear about the different events.

Overall I think that this trip was one of a kind, I would do it again in a heartbeat, although I would go back to South Korea over Beijing any day... but thats a whole different story. I am happy to say that I climbed the Great Wall and saw the Beijing Olympics but really, I have so many more memories that are just as amazing as they were.

I am not planning on going out this summer, I decided that I want to be able to be at home for a summer and spend some time with my new favorite little person in the world, spend some time with my family and to be able to spend some time with Will and Teej before my two people that keep me sane when the world is crazy move back to Pullman without me!! and last but not least... I have to get a real job. HA!