DAY 6, FRIDAY, JANUARY 10th
Happy Friday! Today we tried a new canteen for breakfast and I had a delicious noodle soup with mushrooms and chicken. After breakfast we had class per usual where we continued pronunciation work and started learning some basic phrases. For lunch we tried a new canteen as well, unfortunately the floor with the better food was too full so we ate in the first floor. We had another struggle-bus moment trying to order but I ended up getting some pork buns to eat. For our art class today our teacher started painting portraits of each of us.
After class today we headed straight to our excursions for today. Our first stop was The Headquarters of Confucius institute. The Confucius institute has partnerships in locations all over the world where their focus is educations and spreading knowledge of Chinese language and culture. One of the locations is at William & Mary and the Confucius institute at William & Mary mostly funded this whole trip for which we are very grateful for; and thus the reason we visited the headquarters. Inside we got a tour around a small museum with artifacts and historical information and got to enjoy several interactive exhibits.
After our visit there we headed to a tea house to experience a tea ceremony. It was in a cool, old building in the middle of Beijing and we were able to try 5 teas that are traditional in China! I personally enjoyed the black tea and hibiscus tea the most.
After tea we headed to another traditional, round-table dinner- this one had probably my favorite food yet. After dinner some of us headed to a mall nearby just to explore. They called it a “small” mall but of course it was the size if not bigger than most average US malls. I didn’t buy anything but it was fun to walk around!! After the mall we walked back to the dorms and headed to bed- tomorrow is the Great Wall day so it’s a big day!!
DAY 7, SATURDAY, JANUARY 11TH
We are going to see the Great Wall of China today😮 I can barely believe it! We met at 9 AM to hop on the bus for about a 2.5 hour ride to the Simatai portion of the Great Wall. Beijing has access to 5 parts of the wall. The part we went to was the most original and therefore traditionally not as crowded as there aren’t as many nice, built-up stairs and railings. This portion of the wall is located near the Gubei water town which is a newer area that was built as a home-base for tourists visiting the wall. Once we arrived in the town we stopped for lunch before beginning our ascent to the Great Wall.
We had about a 40 minute uphill climb to get to an access point to the Great Wall. The views on this first walk up alone were spectacular. Once we got to the Great Wall we began our walk. The section we were on has 10 towers so we walked along to each tower all the way to the end. Most of the walk on the Wall was fairly straight uphill with tons of stairs. After making it to the top and taking tons of pictures and lots of breaks, we started making our way back down to reconvene with the whole group at 5. We ended up spending close to 4 hours on the wall!!
Once back down we stopped for dinner in town, can’t say I was sad to get a chance to sit and relax haha. After dinner we went to a water/light show in the town that was quite spectacular and an acrobatics/tricks/variety show in town. After the shows we headed back to the bus for the ride home. For me the only downside of the day is that there was no chance to explore the town at all as I would’ve loved to stop in a shop or two. However, it was absolutely a spectacular life moment and a memorable day!
DAY 8, SUNDAY, JANUARY 12TH
Today was another full day of touring!! We started the day by taking the bus to Tiananmen Square. We then walked through the palace museum/forbidden city. The architecture there was spectacular. Our tour guide explained what the buildings for used for and gave some background on how the emperor would live when they lived there. Compared to some other historical areas I’ve been to, it was interesting that they seemed update/fix up so all the buildings (especially the main ones) as they all seemed in great shape and the colors were still very vibrant. We ended the walk-through in the Imperial garden which has some very cool and OLD trees.
By then we were all ready for food so we went as group for a typical lunch. After lunch we headed to the summer palace (you can guess- it’s where the emperor lived in the summer months.) We unfortunately didn’t have a lot of time there but we were able to walk around a bit and see some of the buildings. The summer palace was built right on a HUGE lake that gets frozen over in the winter so that was cool to see.
After summer palace it was time for dinner! Hot pot!! They were able to get us tables at a very popular and food hot pot place in Beijing and it did not disappoint! The food was delicious and the hot food was welcome a Beijing is freezing cold. This restaurant also offered hand masks complimentary with the meal so I got to get that too!! That was all for today!
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