China Summer 2009

Written by Elissa Goldman

May 30. Today was yet another fun-filled day.  We woke up at the usual time to devour a delicious breakfast. Upon completion of breakfast, we headed to our first destination: the forbidden city and Tienamen square.  After about forty-five minutes of driving, we reached what appeared to be an ancient, man-made place where we found handfuls of people observing the beautiful architecture of the buildings.  Of course when the Chinese people saw us, they attacked us like we were celebrities. 

The buildings were colorful, and looked very similar to each other.  It seemed like there were at least ten of the same looking buildings that we continued to visit.  Once we finished walking through, we took an underground tunnel to reach Tienamen square.  Nick continued to promise us that when we reached the square we would know we had, since it is very distinguishable: with no closely surrounding buildings.  It was literally a flat piece of land. When we were waiting to head to the bus, Nick met a man who had lived in Ithaca and went to Cornell.  Even in China, you can see people you might have met in the states.

After visiting our first two destinations, we headed to lunch.  In close quarters to the Forbidden City and Tienamen square, the restaurant was waiting for our group to head to our private room.  We ate in a family style, private room where they brought many Americanized Chinese dishes for us to enjoy.  We have noticed that in Beijing, the food is a lot more Americanized than it had been in Chengdu and Chengzi. 

After lunch, we were finally able to see the “Pearl Market” which everyone had been raving about. It was four floors where we learned what true bargaining was.  We initially visited the pearl station where Ithaca college students had gone to in the past, those who gave us a good deal for pearls.  Our group basically “bought out” this place and everyone was quite exhausted after over two hours of doing so.  We were not finished yet with our bargaining extravaganza after shopping at the “Pearl Market”. 

Our final destination before dinner was the Silk Street Mall.  This was quite intense bargaining, some of us will never forget getting yelled at for asking for too low of a price, or getting trapped and not being able to escape a particular booth.  It became a joke after a while when the store vendors would be charging 600 RMB for a tie or telling us, “for everyone else I would charge a particular price, but for you, you sexy girl, I will charge 300 RMB.”  Little did they know, we were well aware this price was still not nearly cheap enough for the low quality of their knock-off products.  We all ended up making out with a bunch of bargains and ended up having to purchase extra suit cases, doubling our carry-on bag count for the plane ride back to Newark. 

After a tiring five hours in total of shopping, we headed to dinner at a fast-food-esque hot pot place.  We were all so wiped out, when Nick made the joke, “shop until you drop.”  After a satisfying dinner that could have served an army, we headed to an unbelievable acrobatics show.  These performers ranged in age from probably about ten to twenty-two. 

After the show, we were granted the chance to drive by the water cube at the infamous Beijing Olympic stadium.  The flashing blue, red, and even more colors were quite extreme.  Viewing this was definitely an opportunity that all of us seemed to appreciate.