Beijing continued...

Day 4: August 26
This morning we went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was hot and a lot of walking but really cool! A lot of Chinese people asked to take our picture throughout the day and as soon as one person came up to ask, a bunch of others decided it was okay so we would just do a ton all at once. I still can't get over how funny it is! When we get to Guiyang it will probably be even more of an occurrence because they don't see as many foreigners out there. Anyway, after we walked through the Forbidden City, we went to Jiangshan Park right behind it where you can climb a hill to a little temple at the top and it has a beautiful view of the whole city! It was probably my favorite part. Inside the temple was a giant gold statue that was absolutely breathtaking but we weren't allowed to take pictures. Some people were bowing and burning incense. It was beautiful.

Tiananmen Square

Lindsay!

This place is so huge.

This girl wanted to take a selfie but she didn't know the word for it in English so we got to teach her!

The gorgeous view from the top of Jiangshan Park

We were pretty tired out by now!

 When we got back there were a these five girls playing out in front of our hotel so we started talking to them and asked if they wanted to play a game. They were so excited so we taught them red light, green light and they loved it! We also taught them head, shoulders, knees and toes which they picked up so quick! It was cool because we got to help them with some of their English and they taught us some Chinese words. They loved when we took pictures of them or videos! When we had to go back inside to meet with our group to go to dinner, they followed us into the lobby and tried to hide from the hotel staff so they wouldn't get kicked out, it was so funny! Some of our group was there and so the girls showed them head, shoulders, knees and toes. They also loved Emma, the director's 5 year old daughter. They were hugging her and picking her up and Emma was just loving the attention! It was so fun!

Then we went and had noodles for dinner before going to the acrobat show! That was seriously so entertaining! There were these girls that could bend and twist there bodies all crazy. And these guys that did cool tricks on this giant, double hamster wheel type contraption that spun around. And acrobats jumping through hoops and they put like 10 ladies on one bicycle riding around in these cool formations. The coolest though was the finale. They had a huge metal spherical cage and a guy on a motorcycle covered in light went in and was riding all around the inside of the sphere. Then they kept adding more motorcyclists until there were 8 total! They were just spinning all around and never hit each other. It was insane.


Day 5: August 27
We had training in the morning, before which I skyped with my family which was nice. Our training meetings have been really helpful and gotten me so excited to start teaching! Then we grabbed a quick lunch and took the Subway for 17 stops to the Summer Palace. The palace was cool but my favorite thing was that it was just surrounded by trees and gardens. It was beautiful! It was a pretty hot day though and we were pretty tired out. I also didn't take a ton of pics because I realized I left my SD in my laptop instead of putting it back in my camera, so I just had to use my phone.

This a little stream just covered in lilypads!

When we got back, Lindsay and I decided to just grab some snacks and veg out and watch a movie. We wanted to see a movie in the theater but we couldn't figure out how to find showtimes so we settled for netflix. I have become obsessed with these fruit snacks called QQ something. They're so yummy so we stocked up on those. Haha oh side note: while we were walking back to the hotel after grabbing some snacks, we saw this little boy run out of his house, butt-naked, and just go pee on the side of the rode then run back inside. It was so funny! It is pretty common though for kids to just pee on the road. And baby clothes have just an open butt so instead of diapers I guess their parents just hold them somewhere to let them go. It is definitely different!

We actually found regular flavored potato chips!

Yum Yum!

Day 6: August 28
Hey, I've caught up! Not a lot of excitement today. We had more training this morning and they prepped us for heading off to our separate cities tomorrow. Most people are taking a train (some for up to 9 hours) but because our Guiyang is farthest out, we get to take an airplane. It is only about a 2-3 hour flight but we are leaving earlier than everyone. We leave at 6 AM. Woo. There are four of us going to Guiyang; me, Lindsay, Chris and Evan. They are cool and we have already talked about some cool stuff we want to while we are there!

We had one last group lunch at the same place we had a first group lunch. It went by so fast! I am sad to be leaving our little Hutong and the rest of the group, but I am excited to get settled into our city. Tonight we are going to a Night Market where I guess they have all sorts of weird food and stuff so that should be fun!

Anyways, I am finally updated! My next post will be from Guiyang!