When we got to choose where to go for our E-week trip (experience week) we had a choice between Chang Mai or Beijing, will of corse I would have chosen Beijing because I hadn’t been to Beijing and what better way to visit the capital of China then have a tour of what the mainland is like. I like Beijing because I felt that during my trip the students going on this trip to China was to develop their understanding of what life is like in these places I was partnered up with Ryan Luk and I had expected something a lot more different than just a going to beijing and doing these activities a normal trip to beijing would be to sight see. The whole group was around 30 people and none of us had a clue of what to expect unless they have been to China before. I was very excited and didn’t have a care in th

e world and at that time I was going on the but from Admiralty to the airport and at that time it was almost 12:00pm. The lot of us didn’t have much to talk about because we were on a bus and didn’t know one another quite well.

Arrived in Beijing around 5 o clock and met our tour guide An’a (Chinese name) and Steven. First things first was to check into the the Traders hotel. My first impression was that it was very very big but also very nice and clean because everything was gleaming like diamond and when we got into our room it was better than I expected. It looked as if it had never been used before. So after we set our baggage in our room we set off to the Wong fu Jing market. The teachers let us have our free time in the market to eat, shop and do what we wished My friends and I went to eat KFC for no simple reason and it was horrible, but I then forgot that I ate and then moved on to see what other things there were. Most of the people didn’t eat after a while I met up with Alex and he had bargained for a really strong laser light which could burn through plastic and it’s original price had been 150RMB and he had lowered it down to 20RMB. During the evening I had a really bad stomach cramp which I thought would go away at fist then I called the teachers and then I told them what I had for dinner then it hit me it was THE KFC dun dûn dunnnn.

the morning was good despite the fact that my stomach ache had continued however as the day went on I got better and better even though my partner and I had only slept for a measly 5 hours and were a bit cranky. The first thing we did was to go to the Forbidden City and we had a little bit of free time in front of the Forbidden City, lets say 10-15 minutes and all I saw were tourists and lot of people trying to sell me some kind of junk. When we gathered up to go to the Forbidden city the temperature had risen (I felt it got hotter) while in the Forbidden city, our tour guide had pointed out many interesting facts about the Forbidden city that I hadn’t learnt before examples like some of the buildings had different uses and not just for show. After we went to the forbidden city we were to watch a circus/play of many gymnasts performing to the audience. My favorite of them was the hat trick, during part of the act I had fallen asleep and had a really have the strength and the awareness to get back up. After we went to a school for the physical and mentally disabled people my first impression when I saw one of the students was that the 24 year old had a lot of enthusiasm and his name was Mikel he was a great fan of Michael Jackson and loved to dance. We had lots of fun watching them sing, doing magic tricks, showing them how to dance and we even did some activities e.g make bracelets, drawing etc…

I had had a wonderful sleep that night and had a lot of energy and I wanted to go to the great wall immediately so I ate breakfast went up to wash myself pack up and then checkout. Then the other 28 students plus my partner and I went on the bus just to go to our camp site and we had to leave at quarter to 8 (7:45), it wasn’t a really long trip but we had to make a few stops first because we were scheduled to visit a school and the first lesson the students had was just a normal worm up for the whole 1250 student school.  That lasted for about 40 minutes then the bell rang and everyone got changed and set off for their first class, we went to a room where they were having an english lesson. We all introduced ourselves to the class and they all told us their names in english and mandarin. When that was over we headed over to the course where my friend had cut my hand, then we had a race against the little kids. We definitely won because they were 2 years younger than us and we set off for the Great Wall. The ride too 2 hours with a few stops along the way. The time it took to hike on the Great Wall was about 2 and a half hours. However I hadn’t noticed how tall it was and because of that I was a little frightened by the hight but then eventually I got over it. Camping wasn’t fun but the barbecue was okay in a sense I barely got enough rest during the camp and it was very cold at night.

This is just the recap of my journey and they tell the key moments of this story. The activities that I liked the most was hiking the Great Wall going to the forbidden city and a bit of the camping I think from this experience I met many new friends and the learner profile that I think I represent is risk-taker because I have faced my fears, and have also learned from my mistakes not to eat KFC in a communist country. My fears during this trip was hight but I over came that when on the Great Wall (not so tall when your on it) but I felt nothing while on it I could see everything though there was a lot of fog now that is why I just forget what I fear.

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