CHINA: Day 7

Wednesday May 23, 2012

This morning was supposed to start with a tour of the British School of Beijing (the only international school in China).  However, because we got back so late last night, we missed the part where we were told what time to meet in the lobby to leave.  There probably were ways to figure this out and meet in the lobby on time but, in all honesty, we were exhausted and not super enthused about touring a school.  Bad, I know.  So, Kenz and I slept in (along with all of the other boys who went to the Olympic Stadium with us last night).  Joe did come and knock on our door right before the group left to see what we were doing, and we apologized for sleeping in.  The group that was actually going to the school ended up being pretty small and it was decided that those of us that weren’t going would go with Sharlet later to meet up with the group at the zoo. 

We wandered around our alley for the morning, and then headed to the zoo with the rest of the group.  The zoo was really big and beautifully landscaped, but not much different than any other zoo.  I soon realized that my new, fake Toms were not the ideal shoe to choose for walking around non-stop all day.  Between my aching and quickly blistering feet and the sweltering heat, I soon realized that the zoo was a lot less thrilling to me than it had been in my childhood.  I was done about ten minutes into it.  However, Branden had never been to a zoo before so we did a speedy tour of the whole thing for him.  I mostly just wanted to see the pandas (we are in China after all). When we finally found the pandas, we were a teeny disappointed.  I don’t know what we were expecting, but the few pandas sitting in corners eating bamboo didn’t really thrill us like we hoped they would.  They were still cute though and I really couldn’t come back from China without seeing a panda, so I guess it was worth it.

After we were completely burnt out on the zoo, we had a couple of hours to kill before we were supposed to meet for dinner.  We were headed back to the subway when we discovered an underground mall.  Shopping pretty much takes priority over everything on this trip, so of course our journey to the subway was put on hold.  We discovered that this mall was a little higher class than the places that we had been shopping and definitely not a very touristy spot.  After wandering around for a while, we decided to grab some lunch.  Kenz and I decided to go to KFC and discovered that it was nothing like an American KFC.  They had some chicken but they had a whole bunch of other weird stuff too.  We decided to keep it safe and just order some French fries; which was a lot more complicated than we had anticipated.  The people spoke no English and the pictures on the menu weren’t very good for pointing at, which is how we usually order when we can’t communicate.  Eventually we got it figured out though.  The boys got some sushi from a different restaurant and we had a good time watching them eat real Chinese wasabi (I didn’t try any, but apparently it’s waaaay hotter than wasabi that you get in America).  That was super entertaining. 

After lunch (and some napping on the tables) we got back on the subway.  When we got back to our subway stop, we decided to just wait for the group there rather than walking all the way to the hostel and back with the group.  While we were waiting for everyone else to get there, the boys starting humming….and then full-on singing, hymns in the subway station.  They were really good too.  We got some pretty funny looks.  Unfortunately, when Joe and Sharlet got there they told the boys that something like that could get us kicked out of the country.  The government takes the “no proselyting” rule pretty seriously and if someone with authority had found out that there were some Mormons singing hymns in the subway station, we could have been in big trouble.  We stopped before that could happen.

For dinner tonight, we went to a night market.  It was a long, narrow street full of food booths with all kinds of crazy foods.  The first thing that I saw when we got there was a whole bunch of scorpions wiggling around on sticks waiting to be cooked.  Soooo creepy!  After seeing them moving around like that, I couldn’t bring myself to eat one.  Some of the boys did though.  I decided that I had to be a little bit adventurous though so I ate snake, squid, and squid eggs!  Yuck!  It makes my stomach turn just thinking about that.  They really weren’t that bad honestly, but I definitely will stick to beef and chicken as my meats of choice. 

After eating, we wandered around the area for a while and explored the shopping that was there.  Branden and Zach helped Kenz and I get some pretty good prices on a couple of things so that was super exciting.  I love watching those kids bargain. 

As much fun as I had today, I was definitely excited to get back to the hostel.  I literally tore my feet apart with my new Toms today.  By the end of the night I was walking so slow and literally limping down the sidewalk.  I felt ridiculous.  Branden even offered to give me a piggy back ride or grab me one of the little bicycle taxis.  Super sweet, but I assured him I could handle it.  It felt so good to take those shoes off by the time we got back, and I don’t know if I will be putting them on again anytime soon.  I did get lots of compliments though.  Like Mom always says, “Beauty is pain.”