Time Flies When You're on the Great Wall of China

It feels impossible that as I write this post we have already passed the halfway point of our time in China. Ever since leaving Tanzania, time seems to have sped up. At Mwangaza we were removed from the hustle and bustle of city life and the peaceful days seemed to stretch longer than 24 hours. In China though, everyone is on the move. I've ridden the subway at rush hour a few times now and literally felt the weight of city life pressing against me. However, the fast-forward pace of our second week in Beijing didn't stop it from being a good one.

In the main square!

On Sunday we joined our buddies once again for a visit to the Forbidden City, an enormous palace complex built during the Ming dynasty. My buddy from last week was out sick, so I joined Alexa and Aviva as well as Solveig and her buddies, Maggie and Cindy. Cindy had really done her homework and peppered our exploration of the city with facts and tidbits about the things we were seeing. For example, there are dozens of courtyards lining the sides of the main square because every concubine of the emperor wanted her own space. My favorite part of the palace was the garden and the false mountain at the far end. The emperor so wanted to recreate the outside world that he commissioned a mountain to be artfully built from stones imported from other regions of China (featured 2nd in the slide show below)!

Solveig with her fish from lunch.

After our tour of the Forbidden City the group of us spent the afternoon walking around the surrounding neighborhood looking for a tasty spot for lunch. We ended up at a restaurant called Beijing Pie where we had several pies and other dishes, including fried whole fish! They were delicious - heads and tails included. I am loving the opportunity to try foods that I never would back home. Going back to the St. Olaf cafeteria is certainly going to be underwhelming.

Settling into a routine here has been such a relief from the constant new experiences of Global. Even though we aren't on the St. Olaf campus, living campus life feels wonderfully familiar. As a group we have successfully learned how to navigate the cafeteria, discovered favorite tea spots and restaurants, and found the nearby grocery store. It is a simple thing, but I love the simple ritual of waking up to the sun every morning in my room, eating my breakfast of tangerines and biscuits, and then joining my friends for class. I'm not looking forward to the end of Global by any means, but it feels really good to be on a campus, at least for a little while longer.

Wow. That's all I have to say.

Tuesday, however, interrupted our routine of class with a day trip to the Great Wall of China! The Great Wall is somewhere I have wanted to visit ever since I watched "Big Bird in China" on VHS as a child, and let me tell you, it did not disappoint. It was a perfect autumn day when we made the hike up to the wall, the sun shining down upon red and orange leaves. Standing on the wall was to stand above the forest, looking down on the treetops of the slope on either side. You could see for miles and everywhere you looked there was the ribbon of the wall continuing in the distance. We spent about two hours on the wall, walking a few kilometers along the top. The time on the wall was very special for me. It was a time to reflect on the semester so far as well as where I'm at on a personal level. I really appreciated the opportunity to have a quiet moment amid the wonderful chaos that is this trip.

Later in the week we explored Beijing's 798 arts district, again with our buddies. The area is full of contemporary galleries and shops in repurposed industrial buildings. There is also lots of street art and interactive art, like the famous red dinosaurs pictured below. While all the art was incredible, what I loved the most was this little van on the side of the road that was selling CDs and records. It was just so unexpected to be walking down the street in China and hear "Cleopatra" by The Lumineers blasting from the speakers! I wish I could share some pictures from that day, but I had temporarily lost my phone so I was lacking a camera.

Then we had the weekend free, so the majority of the group took a sleeper train to Shanghai. We had booked our tickets and AirBnb last week, so we didn't think getting there would be too challenging. The universe, however, had other plans for us. We took the subway to the train station and split up into groups to print our tickets and get through security. I was with Brennan, Alexa, and Ryan since we had purchased our tickets together, but we ran into a problem when we reached the ticket gate. It turns out that when we bought the tickets online, Ryan had mistyped his own passport number. Since a passport is what they use to confirm your identity, the ticket worker refused to print Ryan's. Brennan, Alexa, and I were trying to troubleshoot this, all the while not knowing if anyone else had made it through security since we weren't seeing anyone from our group. When we had five minutes left to board the train, we threw up our hands and went to the gate. We found much of the group there and went through onto the platform. Ryan snuck in amid a group of Oles and made it on to the train without a ticket at all.

We made our way to our car, and were delighted to find that everyone had made it! I thought that this would be the end to our troubles, but we yet hadn't accounted for the train officials who went through each car to check the tickets. Thankfully MeiYi translated and figured things out and we were able to go to sleep. I honestly think that they got to a point where they just got tired of dealing with us and decided to let it slide. When I awoke the next morning, I checked my phone to see we had yet another problem. Our AirBnb host had messaged me at 1am that night to tell us that the police had come by and informed him that he wasn't allowed to host foreigners. He offered to put us up in "his friend's house," but at this point we were pretty sketched out and cancelled the reservation. Unfortunately, this meant that we were in Shanghai with nowhere to sleep. After camping out at the station Starbucks and using their WiFi to make some calls, Zibby was able to arrange a hotel for us through a family friend that happened to live in Shanghai.

The Bund area.

I am so happy that we had the chance to see another big city other than Beijing. Beijing is the political capital of China, but Shanghai is the economic one. It's a bit like Washington D.C. versus New York City. On our first day a group of us walked down the river to the Bund area to view the striking skyline, and then took the train to the Qi'bao area. Qi'bao is a neighborhood built along a series of canals and waterways with narrow streets full of shops and restaurants. The architecture there is all traditional, and everything is lit up by lanterns! We even saw a group of old ladies doing some tai chi in one of the main squares. We spent the evening exploring and having a fantastic dinner overlooking the canal before making our way back to the hotel before our evening out.

En route to Linx!

Ryan happened to have a connection to a club promoter in Shanghai through one of his friends from Olaf, so we found ourselves at a bougie club downtown called Linx. We had to go up and say a password before the bouncer confirmed that we were on the list. We were then let in for free, led to two VIP tables at the front of the dance floor, and told that we could drink for free the entire night. Apparently it's not uncommon for clubs to give groups of foreigners the VIP treatment so that they will dance and hype up the crowd. Everything inside was black and shiny and lit up with blue and purple lights. Hands down, the fanciest night out I've had! We had an amazing (and SAFE for all you parents out there reading this) time and thankfully got to sleep in the next morning.

Yang's is the one with the pink billboard!

After a much needed lazy morning, I led the group on a pilgrimage across Shanghai to locate a lunch of dumplings. We walked all the way across the city to a dumpling place I had found online, and although the walk was long it ended up being a great excuse to see some more of the city! The place we planned on going to had a super long line, so I headed across the street to a place called Yang's. I will dream about those dumplings for the rest of my life! I wish I had taken pictures, but I was too busy putting dumplings into my mouth. I ate six, one more than Patric even! After that wonderful lunch we found our way back to the train station and made it, with no hang-ups, on the train back to CNU.

Oh! Before I sign off, I almost forgot to mention that it was Halloween! We had a little party at our professor's apartment and even had a roommate costume contest. Meet Kim Possible and Rufus the naked mole rat, AKA me and Zibby. Other costumes included Santa and a Christmas tree, The Flash, and several impersonation costumes of other members of the group like Brennan dressed as Joel and Joel dressed as Elijah. This was definitely a Halloween for the books :)

Thanks for reading! Until next time,

-GMH