CHINA: Day 8

Thursday May 24, 2012

Today was kind of a different day.  This morning we had our briefing with the Embassy (or something).  It was a pretty long subway ride, so Dr. Kellogg decided that she would take a taxi because she doesn’t do too well with walking long distances.  Shannon and I ended up staying with her to take the taxi too because we both have super blistered feet that were not going to love the walk to and from the subway.  Zach stayed to take the subway too because….well….I don’t actually know why. 

The taxi ride was, of course, super scary.  When we finally made it to the building (which was a huge building that took up an entire block) we wandered around for a while trying to find the entrance.  We couldn’t find it anywhere.  So we decided to wait by the subway exit/entrance for the rest of our group to get there.  We waited for a long time and they never showed up.  After a while we decided to go down into the subway station and try waiting at a different exit/entrance (there were 4 different options) and hope that we would find them at a different one.  We waited outside the subway for a while and Zach went in and out of the subway a few times, but we never saw the rest of our group.  Our meeting was supposed to start at 10:00 and after waiting until about 10:25, Dr. Kellogg finally turned to us and said, “Well, who wants to go to the Pearl Market?”  We all laughed and agreed, but I was a little wary of just taking off.  Once you get separated from people in Beijing (with absolutely no way of contacting each other) you’re not going to ever run into them unless you have already planned a time and place to meet.  Before we left this morning, we had made a rough schedule of how we would spend the day (after the briefing, it was pretty much up to us what we did) but our next solid meeting time was at the hostel at 6:00 for dinner.  I knew that if we left now we wouldn’t see the rest of the group until then.  However, Dr. Kellogg told us that even if we could figure out where our meeting was, it would be rude to walk in late, and none of us were super interested in sitting around and waiting for them to get done.  So, we grabbed a taxi.  (P.S. we ended up being at the building across the street from the building that we were supposed to be at. Oops.)

When we got to the Pearl Market, Dr. Kellogg went up to Rui Pei Pei’s to make some jewelry, and Zach, Shannon and I did some more shopping.  Watching Zach bargain with the people at the Pearl Market is seriously one of the funniest things I have ever seen.  He is so good at it! He flirts and argues and smooth talks his way into whatever price he wants.  He always wins in the end but sometimes they aren’t too happy about it.  One lady disliked him so much that she told him his wife was going to find a new husband!  Hahaha! We also love the salesladies shouts of “You crazy!” “You joking!” “Give me serious price!” “Give me no joking price!” every time we tell them how much we want to pay for something.  “You crazy!” has become kind of our China trip catch phrase.  We all say it all the time now.  I don’t think the vendors love when we throw it back at them though.  Once we had bought the things that we wanted to, we went downstairs and had Subway for lunch and then headed back to the hostel to change our clothes (we were in business clothes that we were supposed to wear for our briefing) and take a 20 minute power nap. 

After our little break, the three of us decided to go to the Military Museum.  None of us had a lot of (or any) interest in that, but that’s where some of the group had talked about going this morning so we thought we might run into them there.  But we didn’t.  The museum was either mostly closed or super lame, but the whole thing was outside and there were just a bunch of American planes and tanks.  We took a couple of pictures to show that we had been there and then left about 2 minutes after getting there.  It wasn’t the most thrilling place.  Plus, we had become a lot more interested in something a couple subway stops away: the amusement park.

We had seen the stop for the amusement park on the subway map all week, and we all thought we should probably go there sometime.  So today Zach and Shannon and I decided that, as long as we had nothing better to do, we might as well go check it out.  Our plan was to just go see if it looked fun and check on hours and prices so that we could tell the rest of the group if it was worth going back tomorrow or something.  However, once we got there and found out that it was only 20 qui to get in (like 3 US dollars) we couldn’t resist going in.  From the outside, the place looked pretty legit, but once we got in we realized it wasn’t actually too impressive.  The whole place was pretty old and ghetto looking…..and completely deserted.  It was so weird but there was honestly hardly anyone there!  It was kind of eerie really and we felt like we were in the perfect situation for a horror movie to start any minute.  We soon realized that the 20 qui that we paid to get in only got us into the park, not onto any of the rides.  We decided that as long as we were there we had to ride at least one roller coaster, so we picked the one that looked the most intense and paid 30 qui for a ride pass.  The roller coaster was one where your feet dangle and the safety restraint comes over your head and locks in between your legs.  Zach was the first one to get on and when the guy pulled the thing down over his head and tried to get it too lock, it wouldn’t go.  He started shaking his head and waving his hands and motioning for Zach to get out (this place was obviously not a tourist spot because no one spoke the teeniest bit of English). We were super confused, but Zach got off.  Then the guy motioned for Shannon and me to come get on.  We did and he pulled down and locked our safety bars.  Then he pointed at us and gave a thumbs up and pointed back to Zach and shook his head.  It took us a while to figure out what was going on, but eventually we realized that Chinese roller coasters are made for tiny Chinese people, and Zach couldn’t fit in it.  He’s not a big guy at all, but he is bigger than the toothpick Chinese people (as we all are).  Shannon (who is a tiny little gymnast) and I definitely felt smashed in that roller coaster, but at least we fit.  We felt terrible that Zach couldn’t go on, but the two of us went anyway.  It was actually a pretty fun roller coaster, but not worth paying 30 qui to go again.  Once we got off, we got the roller coaster man to try again to fit Zach on.  It wasn’t going to happen.  We all cracked up for a while about him being too big and went and found a different roller coaster that he could ride.  Too funny.  Note to anyone going to China: if your self esteem is fragile, the amusement park is probably not the place for you to go.

After that adventure, we headed back to the hostel to meet up with everyone for dinner.  While I had had a lot of fun with our random group of 3 today, I definitely felt lost without Kenzy and was excited to meet up with the rest of the group again. We ate dinner at the same restaurant we went to the first night, which was good but nothing too exciting.  When we got back to the hostel, Shannon, Taylor, and I decided to do some laundry before we went to bed.  That was an adventure in itself as the machines aren’t too high quality, but we got it done.

All in all it was a pretty fun day (for my little group anyway) but I think I will be sticking with the majority and not breaking off to take a taxi from now on.

P.S. my blisters felt much better today once I put some bandaids on and got them in my Nikes rather than my new Toms or my dressy business shoes.