Day 1:
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Woke up at 4 a.m. to get to airport
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Mrs. Zhang was late and almost missed the flight
to Detroit
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We had a 4 hour layover in Detroit, the airport
was really new, I almost lost my wallet!
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When we saw our plane that was to take us to
China, everyone was how big it was, there were 3 columns of seats, two of which
were 3 seats and one of which was 4
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Watched 4 movies on plane -> Safe Haven,
Gangster Squad, Side Effects, and Dark Knight Rises
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Airplane food wasn’t too bad, but I preferred
the chicken over the beef
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Couldn’t fall asleep on plane, guy in front of
me leaned all the way back in his seat (he also wore a fanny pack)
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When we landed, you can immediately see the
smog, it’s like a faint bluish tint that is like looking at something you can’t
adjust your eyes to focus on, it’s just hazy
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Our hosts from Beijing picked us up and took us
to our hotel, we showered and changed then went to a local restaurant
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Dinner was really good, but it took our hosts 30
minutes just to decide what to eat, we were all jet-lagged, and wanted to sleep
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Our hosts English names were Anna, Bisquit,
Harry, and Peter
Day 2:
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Went to a local breakfast stand for breakfast
and ate small steamed bamboo dumplings, this meal was extremely delicious and
cheap
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We made our way to school, but Harry took us
around the entire block on accident instead of going the short way, everyone in
our class at Beijing Number 4 spoke English, some better than others
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All of the students in our hosts’ class wanted
to go abroad to study in college
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First class was bio/chem, second class was
English/writing
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We had a campus tour, spoke with Mr. Shi, then
went and ate in the cafeteria which had very good food but was insanely loud
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We returned to the hotel after lunch to catch
our bearings and get ready for the afternoon
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We met with our hosts at 2:30 to go to BeiHai
Park, which was just down the road from our hotel, our hosts took us to the
BeiHai Subway Station to get tickets, doesn’t that sound funny? We walked to
the station named after the park we were going to, it turns out that our host
was wrong and the park was right across the street from the subway station
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| BeiHai Park |
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BeiHai Park is most famous for its massive lake
in the middle and a big white building on a hill, I prayed at a Buddhist altar
for good luck took pictures by the dragon wall
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After Beihai we went to NanLuo GuXiang, which is
a touristy street that has a bunch of shops and cool places, we ate lamb
skewers and spicy noodles soup
Day 3:
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Ate breakfast at hotel
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Our hosts came to pick us up and we went to
Chinese National Museum since it was raining
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| Ancient Chinese Money |
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We went to a couple of exhibits like
architecture, porcelain, sculptures/ancient works, ancient money, and the gifts
that the Chinese leaders have been given from other nations
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After the museum, we went to QuanJuDe for lunch,
this restaurant is the most famous in Beijing (and in China) for Beijing roast
duck, it is located on the far side of Tiananmen Square opposite the Forbidden
City in an area called QianMen
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QianMen is a LONG street looking pathway but is
closed to cars, similar to NanLuo GuXiang it has a lot of touristy attractions
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We later went to take pictures in Tiananmen
Square and saw the “Big Egg” theater
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We ate dinner at the hotel
Day 4:
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Wake up to a sunny morning, first time we’ve
seen the sun all trip, but it’s still partially hidden by the smog, there’s a
patch of blue sky but the rest of the sky is still a gloomy gray
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| Forbidden City |
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We went to the Forbidden City, my favorite part
was the imperial garden, the entire Forbidden City is absolutely massive, you
cannot even understand the size of this place until you see it, tons of Asian kept
asking us to take our picture with them (apparently they don’t see many white
people)
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We went to XiDan and ate KFC for lunch
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After KFC, we went to the silk market – a six
story building with a TON of boutiques and vendors, it was funny because all
the vendors would actually grab us when we walked by, call us handsome, say
they will give us “bestfriend price” just to get us to look at their items
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We took a cab home, and the driver’s accent had
so much “r” that I couldn’t even understand a single word he said
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We went out to eat out to eat at a local restaurant
and ate a whole fish that was riddled with peppers that make your tongue go
numb!
Day 5:
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We learned from Bisquit that two numbers are
chosen every day by the Beijing government, and if your license plate number
ends with one of the two selected numbers, you are not allowed to drive that
day
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| Great Wall - My favorite place in China |
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We took a bus to BaDaLing, the most famous
section of the Great Wall of China, we went up the south portion first, then
the north portion, all four of our hosts had never been to the Great Wall, and
all four of them didn’t even bother to walk up!
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The Great Wall was easily my favorite part of
the trip, the clean air was cool in the higher altitude and was quite
refreshing
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After the Great Wall, we went to the Ming burial
grounds for the 13th emperor
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The grounds that the tomb was on were huge, but
the actual tomb wasn’t that big
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Ate dinner at hotel
Day 6:
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| TianTan Sacrifice Circle |
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Went to the Temple of Heaven (TianTan) park
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TianTan was a public park with a lot of activity
going on – people swingdancing, old women doing exercises, people playing
hackeysack, kids twirling ribbons, etc.
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We went to a sacrificing altar in the middle of
the park, I sat down on it and acted like I was meditating
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We learned after we left the park that in China,
street signs are arranged backwards from America’s
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We went to a Shanghai restaurant (fanciest restaurant
we went to in China) and ate sharkfin soup!
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After lunch, we went to the emperor’s Summer
Palace which was absolutely massive, the coolest attraction of the Summer
Palace was the “long corridor”
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The “long corridor” is notable because the
entire corridor is painted and every painting is unique, there are hundreds
upon hundreds of paintings adorning the corridor
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After the Summer Palace, we went to the
highschool to play basketball, the basketball courts were outdoors and were
absolutely disgusting, I had to wash my hands five times to get the grime off
Day 7:
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Today we traveled to Jinan, Mrs. Zhang’s hometown
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The Beijing train station was very new and
accessible from the subway station
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When we boarded the train, we realized how long
the highspeed trains are, we also didn’t know how quiet they would be, when the
train is going it hardly feels like you’re moving and you can’t hear hardly any
noise
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On the way to Jinan, the surrounding landscape
looks like something out of the movie Inception – there were entire developments
of high rise buildings that were abandoned
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We were picked up by two men who worked for the
highschool in Jinan
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When we arrived at the highschool, it was as if
we were movie stars, all the kids started screaming and pointing at us like
they had never seen a white person before
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| Jinan Highschool with our host brothers |
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The kids from Jinan did a little talent show to
welcome us – one of the weirdest moments of my life…
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After school I went home with my host family
whom I could hardly understand
Day 8:
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My host father took my host brother and I to
school
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When we showed up to class, all the students
were clapping and shouting as usual
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A lot of teachers came to my class and asked if I
could come talk to their classes, every single student wanted my email or phone
number (I’ve received hundreds of emails from the students)
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During recess we played ping pong, basketball,
jump rope, and other activities
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| BaoTuQan Park |
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After some more class, one of the English
teachers at their school toured us around two famous parks in Jinan
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DaMingHu, or Big Ming Lake, was very similar to
BeiHai, but had much better gardens
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My favorite place in Jinan was easily our trip
to BaoTuQuan, which was a park that housed 32 of the 72 natural springs in
Jinan
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My host family took me to a restaurant that
served eccentric seafood dishes
Day 9:
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Since it was our last day at the highschool in
Jinan, all the girls were asking to take our pictures
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Also, the kids in my class wanted me to do a
performance for them, so I sang “Make Believe” by City and Colour because it’s
the only song I know all the words to by heart
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After we left the school, we went to a Chinese
supermarket that sold anything and everything – it even had a boutique selling
sea cucumbers for 16,000 yuan per kg!!!
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We left Jinan to go to Beijing by train, this
was by far the most annoying ride I’ve ever experienced, people were talking on
their phone way too loud the entire way
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When we got to Shanghai, I was impressed by the
modern aspect of the city, it’s much different than Beijing and Jinan
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We arrived at the WLSA school next to the Fudan
highschool where I met Billy and his parents, Billy’s mom had a meeting so I went
to dinner with Billy and his father
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We went to the Golden Jaguar, the most famous
buffet style restaurant in Shanghai, it was delicious
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We returned to Billy’s neighborhood (about an
hour outside of the city) and played pickup basketball with some local kids
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Billy and his dad took me to a public bath
facility that night
Day 10:
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We went on a tour of different places in
Shanghai with our WLSA group
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We went to Fudan University, the Bund, and the
YuYuan Gardens
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We ate dinner at a famous dumpling restaurant, I
ate 28 dumplings because the girls at our table wouldn’t eat anything
Day 11:
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We traveled 2 hours outside of Shanghai to a
place called WuZhen, which is nick-named the Venice of the East
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| Shanghai lit up at night |
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William Yang and I got bored so we went to find
a secluded street and ate lunch for two hours
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We went back to the Bund that night, but we went
to look at it from the other side of the river, the newer section of Shanghai
was all lit up
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When we returned back to my host family’s
apartment we ate a fruit feast, we had peaches, pears, apples, yangmei,
blackberries, liqi, watermelon, bananas, and mangos – it was amazing
Day 12:
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For the WLSA conference we went around to
different presentations about a variety of topics such as stereotypes,
meditation, social media, etc
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My presentation was on developing a worldwide
social media site that wasn’t blocked by any governments (China blocks a lot of
websites like Facebook and Youtube), I paired up with two Australian girls
named Katelin and Georgiana
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After the conference, Billy and his parents treated
me, William, Mrs. Zhang and her daughter Koko to the Golden Jaguar again
Day 13:
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We finished up the WLSA conference and said bye
to all the new friends we had made from California, Michigan, China, South
Africa, Australia, and Malaysia
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We took a train back to Beijing (it was another
awful train ride)
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We were all exhausted when we got back to
Beijing, but it was almost as if we were returning home (we were all so familiar
with Beijing at this point that we could navigate the city on our own)
Day 14:
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We headed to the Beijing zoo to see the pandas
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| Bird's Nest |
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Mrs. Zhang and Koko got tired so they went back
to the hotel, after they left we went to the Olympic area of Beijing – we saw
the Bird’s Nest, the Water Cube, and the huge Olympic tower
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We wanted to go see a Chinese movie afterwards,
but the movie theater had closed at 9, what kind of movie theater closes at 9?
Day 15:
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We went back to the silk market just to kill
some time
Day 16:
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Our last day in Beijing! We had a huge dinner to
celebrate our last day and 4th of July
Day 17:
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We went to the Beijing airport to return home,
James got stopped by customs and had over 40 dollars’ worth of souvenirs taken
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We flew from Beijing to Seattle, I watched 5
movies because I couldn’t sleep
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We had a two hour layover in Seattle, then we
flew to Atlanta
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From Atlanta we flew back to Nashville
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Home sweet home!!
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