Hi everyone,
In May 6-10, our whole grade went had an exciting trip called the Experience Week, we were to choose to go either to Beijing or Thailand, I chose Beijing. In this blog I would be talking about the trip, the reflection is in the previous post. Enjoy! (I sorry that this came out pretty late)
Day 1:
I woke up at 3:00 in the morning and why? It wasn’t because I had to go to the trip that early, it was Justin who woke me up. He was going to Thailand and had to arrive at Admiralty for the bus at 5:00, so in the end I woke up to say good-bye with him. Luckily I managed to get back some sleep and I woke up again at 8:30. I got myself prepared and arrived at Admiralty around 10:10. Surprisingly, I was the first one there! Well, we set off to the airport at 10:30, and don’t worry, we didn’t get involved with a car crash or got fined from the police or did something that cancelled our whole trip! The weather was nice. We arrived at the airport at 11:30 and I really felt sorry for the classmates that waited at the airport. And why is that? That is because the classmates in the airport had to arrive at 10:45, and waited for “45 Minutes”. Hope they didn’t feel tired standing.
Our flight was a Dragonair flight, and it took us around 3 and a half hours to fly from Hong Kong to Beijing. But before we got on the flight, we ate lunch and had free time for around 7 hours x8 +4 hours -20 hours ÷by 40 hours! Calculate it and you will find that it was an hour of free time. I went with my roommate Russell and ate lunch. I add fried rice! I was very excited of the trip!
After the free time, we met at the gate for the plane at 1:30, and we boarded the plane! The up side is that I got to sit with someone I know, and head books, and other accessories that I could use and play with, but the down side is, there wasn’t TV, so there wasn’t movies. But still, books, rubix cubes are fun and I didn’t get bored.
When we arrived in Beijing, we went through immigration, and picked up our baggage, it took a long time to wait for everyone to pass through immigration, go to the washroom… We met our tour guides Anna and Stephen when we went out of the arrival gates and we boarded on the bus, Anna gave a brief introduction about Beijing’s modern life, and the traffic and how Beijing is set up, with the ring territories for Beijing starting from the City Center to the 5 or 6th ring road in the outskirts of Beijing. Then we headed to our first stop and our only stop that day: Wangfujing Market.
Wangfujing Market is a famous street in Beijing. It was the first ever department store in Beijing. But now there are over 10 department stores, in addition there are 100 of thousands of stores on the street side. We had 1 hour to roam around the market. I went with 4 others and we didn’t buy anything. Instead, we went into one of the department stores and ate Japanese Cuisine. I ate fried rice! The street was beautiful in the night, there were lights around everywhere, flashing around; there were people around, making it a busy place. I really like Wangfujing Market, but unfortunately we had only one hour to eat dinner and shop, so we only ate dinner and didn’t have any time to shop. Next time I would like more time.
After dinner, we headed to our hotel. It is opened by Island Shangri-La but the hotel is called Traders. We checked in and got our rooms and I can say the hotel is really nice. There is a nice bathroom with showers, there were 2 beds, one for Russell and one for me. There is also a desk to work and a place to hang our clothes and put our luggages. We settled in and drifted away to sleep, resting for the next day’s journey.
Day 2:
Day 2 was a busy day, we went to lots of places. In the morning, we went to Tiananmen Square,The Forbidden City; and in the afternoon we visited the Huiling Community Center, where there were some mentally challenged people. And in the evening we had such amazing events that you will soon know about…
First, we arrived at Tiananmen Square. It was huge! Very huge! Tiananmen Square is in the middle of Beijing, and citizens of Beijing respect that place as it is a symbol of their country. No anti-China activity must be discussed. We got around 10 minutes to take pictures.Then we headed into The Forbidden City. The Forbidden City was the palace in the Ming, Qing Dynasty for the Chinese emperors. And there were thousands of buildings in there. Since we only had around 1-2 hours to visit the city, we followed our guide straight through the middle of the palace, looking at the famous, important buildings such as the Hall of Supreme Harmony, Hall of Heavenly Purity and much more. Unfortunately, the Hall of Supreme Harmony was in construction so we didn’t get a close look at it. Nevertheless, we had an enjoyable time in the City, including going into a four star rated toilet.
We spend our lunch time in a Chinese restaurant, eating Chinese cusine such as Choi Sum, Pork, and most important, rice. It was a delicious meal and everyone enjoyed it.
After lunch, we headed to Huiling Community Center, where there are mentally challenged students who learn. Even though they look like 20, 30 years old adults, they behave like children and are very welcoming. But don’t judge the book by its cover, they must not be underestimated. The students put up a great performance that we all are surprised of and are capable of doing things that we can do, there were performances such as magic, music, dance. And I dare say the performance we prepared are in no match for their performance. After a lot of clapping and watching, we gave gifts to them we brought all the way from Hong Kong and they recieved it, helping them with their needs.
Surprise, Surprise! Aren’t you eager to know what the “Amazing Events” are? In the early evening around 4:30, we headed to Chaoyang theater to watch the amazing acrobatic show! We were all amazed as they performed tricks such as standing on the hands and looking like a superman while only supported by many layers of chairs, or dancing ballet on shoulders, there was also a motorcycle sections, where there were 8 motorcycles in the metal spheres, spinning around and around with death just by one little mistake. But they were brilliant, a perfected show. And this is one of my favorite part of the whole trip.
Just before ending the day, another “Wow” event we had was dinner. That night, we had hot pot! We got to cook meat and vegetables inside a pool of boiling water, and it was delicious, including the last part where noodles showed up and everybody just ate it all up.
The days events were over, but that didn’t stop the excitement going through the night, we were permitted to swim in the swimming pool, which we were a bit too loud, and had to pack up our luggages as we had to check out the next day for camping under the great wall. I also played cards with my roommate Russell and slept around 10:45.
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