Beijing-the train ride and day one
The adventure continues. Wednesday night after we were done eating Lorilei and I quickly grabbed a bite to eat and then headed up to our room where we finished packing and we headed out to get a couple of things before we left for Beijing. We took a long and painful bus ride to Wal-Mart and got what we thought we needed for the train ride to Bei Jing,then we hopped a bus to the train station. At the train station we stopped in at the McDonald’s to grab an Ice cream before the train left for Bei Jing. Then we headed into the train station to wait. In the station we met up with the rest of our group and waited to board the train. On the train we found our seats and got situated, then we visited with people in other cabins. When my cabin was set up I visited Lorilei’s cabin, where all eight of us talked for a little bit. Six of us decided to take "The Color Code" personality test. Katelin read the questions and Zac kept track of everyone's answers.We got our results and then I headed back to my cabin.
In my cabin we worked on figuring out the sleeping arraignments. The cabin held six people, five Americans and one Chinese. We gave the one Chinese person their own sleeping arraignment. I put my stuff in my place on the train and set up everything I would need for the night, then I tried to sleep. It wasn't the most comfortable situation, but it was far more comfortable than I was expecting. After some time I woke up and looked at my watch because I wanted to gauge where we were on our journey. We still had quite awhile left on our journey, so I went back to sleep for about an hour, then woke up again and started to get my stuff together to get off the train. When we reached our destination we all got off the train and started to try and get our bearings in Beijing. We wandered for a few minutes looking for the metro and eventually found it.We took the metro to the stop at Tian An Men square and walked to our hostel from there. When we got to the hostel, we got out our passports and the money we needed and started the process of checking into our rooms. When we were done with that we went to our rooms to put our stuff away and continue on with the day.
After everyone in our group was squared away we headed out to Tian An Men to see the square and all that it had to offer. We left our bags at a bag check and made the quick trek through Mao’s mausoleum to see his body. When we were done with that we looked around and tried to make our way into a couple of the other buildings we were planning on visiting only to realize that they closed earlier than we had initially thought. So we talked as a group and ended up splitting into two factions, a few of us were starving and wanted food, while the others wanted to explore a little bit more.We split and my group headed for the forbidden city. We spent several hours just marveling at the wonders provided by the forbidden city. While in the forbidden city we saw the jade nine dragon screen and many of the other wonders that the city provided.
After we were done in the city we quickly headed out to grab a quick bite to eat, then met the rest of our group at the flag lowering ceremony in Tian An Men square. After the flag ceremony we headed to the night market for some more food, but we didn't find anything we liked, so we headed elsewhere to eat while a couple of our number headed back to the hostel, because they had already eaten. After we were done eating we headed back to the hostel and called it a night, rejuvenating our bodies and minds for yet another day in the city of Bei Jing.
