As you can see above as we squint into the sun, last weekend I went to Tiananmen with some friends, where we bought some "green bean ice cream." It is unbelievably hot here, but to tell the truth it's a nice change from San Fran weather, which is never very hot in the summer. There were two things that surprised me about Tiananmen square. First of all, for some reason I thought Tiananmen was red, but it's not, it's just a huge, wide open, gray, Soviet-style sqaure. The only red part is the wall behind us. Second, even though it's a major tourist spot, it didn't look there were many tourists. I was actually expecting there to be few Chinese people there, just like there are virtually no French people at the Eiffel Tower, or no English people at the Tower of London. Then, the thing that surprised me most about Beijing is how cheap it is. I mean, a 20 minuted cab ride split between 4 people is 1 dollar each. It's unreal. All in all, I'm having an amazing time and will try to post more frequently, it's been hard setting up the internet connection.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
In Beijing after 24 hours in the air
Normally a flight from San Francisco to Beijing is 12 hours. My flight had two stop overs, leaving me with a trip that was well over 24 hours door to door and I slept maybe 30 minutes max because I was sitting in an exit row where the seats didn't recline. My cab driver from the airport was an extremely animated guy who asked me dozens of questions about myself and America. What do you think of Bush? Which countries have you visited? What do you want to be when you are older? How much does oil cost in America? I had a lot of trouble understanding him because of his thick Beijing accent that covers a lot of the ends of words in "r" sounds, but using sign language we could communicate basic ideas. Since I didn't understand the word for oil, he explained by putting his hand to his mouth saying "the thing that cars eat..." It was a very fun warm welcome to China. Classes started yesterday and they are definitely intense, but also a lot of fun.
As you can see above as we squint into the sun, last weekend I went to Tiananmen with some friends, where we bought some "green bean ice cream." It is unbelievably hot here, but to tell the truth it's a nice change from San Fran weather, which is never very hot in the summer. There were two things that surprised me about Tiananmen square. First of all, for some reason I thought Tiananmen was red, but it's not, it's just a huge, wide open, gray, Soviet-style sqaure. The only red part is the wall behind us. Second, even though it's a major tourist spot, it didn't look there were many tourists. I was actually expecting there to be few Chinese people there, just like there are virtually no French people at the Eiffel Tower, or no English people at the Tower of London. Then, the thing that surprised me most about Beijing is how cheap it is. I mean, a 20 minuted cab ride split between 4 people is 1 dollar each. It's unreal. All in all, I'm having an amazing time and will try to post more frequently, it's been hard setting up the internet connection.
As you can see above as we squint into the sun, last weekend I went to Tiananmen with some friends, where we bought some "green bean ice cream." It is unbelievably hot here, but to tell the truth it's a nice change from San Fran weather, which is never very hot in the summer. There were two things that surprised me about Tiananmen square. First of all, for some reason I thought Tiananmen was red, but it's not, it's just a huge, wide open, gray, Soviet-style sqaure. The only red part is the wall behind us. Second, even though it's a major tourist spot, it didn't look there were many tourists. I was actually expecting there to be few Chinese people there, just like there are virtually no French people at the Eiffel Tower, or no English people at the Tower of London. Then, the thing that surprised me most about Beijing is how cheap it is. I mean, a 20 minuted cab ride split between 4 people is 1 dollar each. It's unreal. All in all, I'm having an amazing time and will try to post more frequently, it's been hard setting up the internet connection.
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1 comment:
austin i miss u. have a great time.
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