Beijing Visit

Hi Everybody!
So we got back from Beijing last night and we had a ton of fun! We arrived on Friday afternoon and after getting ditched by our teacher, we finally found our hotel. As always in China it took forever to get checked into the hotel. But after a good 50 minutes we had our rooms. At first we had a three person room, for Steve, David and I, but it was moldy so we complained and switched rooms. They ended up giving us a new 2 person room and than a 1 person room for Steve. So it worked out fine in the end. Anyways Friday night we were on a mission to find a restaurant that served foreign food. We ended up asking a of the foreign student at Beijing University and they pointed us to a Mexican restraint called Labambas, This place was awesome. It was awesome to eat good, non- Chinese, food! But the next morning we had our test and to pass at the first level we needed a 33 %. I’m not sure what to expect. There definitely was a lot guessing involved but i did understand some of it. But, the results of the test really don’t matter. But anyways after the test we found the French cafe and had real bread and donuts and coffee. Again the foreign food was amazing. Later that night we threw a surprise birthday party for Jessica, she turned 19. We went back to Labambas to celebrate and enjoy some more Mexican food. But the next morning we went to 'Silk Road' which is one of the many shopping markets for knock off goods. I didn’t buy anything but all the shop people would call out to you in one of the few English sentences they knew. They hated when we came to buy stuff because we could speak Chinese and we know how much stuff is really worth and so they couldn’t jack the prices up like with the other foreigners. One of the weirdest parts of Beijing was the foreigners. It is no big deal to see foreigners in Beijing, but in Shijiazhuang the AFS students are the only foreigners in the while city. So i was so strange to see them in Beijing and not to have everybody staring at you all the time, because you were just another 'Wei guo ren' foreigner. But anyways after the Silk market all hell broke loose as we tried to go catch our train on time. So we took the Metro back to the train station area. The metro station was a short taxi ride to the train station. We would have arrived on time if we could have found taxis but that proved to be easier said than done. Oh by the way I was so close to getting completely lost n Beijing. So we all were standing in one area looking for taxis and so I ventured off to go look for them around the corner, I found one and told him to go pick up my friends, no problem, anyways after waiting for a red light we pulled into where they were waiting. And they were no longer there. So I thought for a second and attempted to tell him to take me to the train station, but he didn’t understand correctly so he took me to the metro station where just walked from. So i got out and sprinted back to where everyone had been. At this point i am realizing that i am almost completely screwed, because my cell phone was out of battery, I didn’t know how to get back to the train station, and even if I could back to the station, I wouldn’t know where to meet everyone, and or train was supposed to leave in like 20 minutes. Anyways so I sprinted back where they should have been and I was looking in the taxis where that where stuck in traffic. Honestly by complete miracle I found the one taxi that had them in it and there myself against the car and was saved! So one of them got out and we took a different taxi to the train station. When we arrived we were so panicked about missing the train, because it left in like 10 minutes and we didn’t have our tickets because they were holding onto them in side, SO we ran threw a check point and ignored the guard that was yelling at us. Anyways we sprinted to our waiting room, and thankfully we met the other there and successfully boarded the train. Just in time... But wait there is more. The other 8 kids that got into the other two taxis missed their train. So it was a nightmare!!! But I worked out in the end because they just bought new tickets for the next train to Shijiazhuag... Me running through the street looking into the taxis was the most adrenalin packed minutes of my life! But still in the end it was a ton of fun to be rushing and panicked like that in Beijing! That is what memories are made of!! So now we are back in Shijiazhuang, and everybody is alright. So were back to normal classes and looking forward to Shanghais in 11 days. We are scheduled to go to the Expo on the first two days that it is opened. So that will be really awesome!

Oh and also I am going to start to post only once a week so I will update the post on Monday, so now you only have to check out this blog once a week.

So I hope you are all doing well and I post again in a week!
Love and Peace!