So Tired

One of the most important things that I recommend to anyone who wants to travel to Beijing or China for that matter is to bring comfortable shoes. When I was told that I would be doing a lot of walking in China I really did not think it would be as much as we have done. I walk a lot back home, especially in Ann Arbor on a college campus but here it is absolutely ridiculous the amount of walking we do. One day one of the students measured how much we walked on some sort of watch monitor and it showed we all walked around 11 miles in one day. As tired as I get from walking every day I will admit that by the end of the day no matter how relaxing and care free the day was I pretty much pass out on my bed and get a great nights rest.

Other then the ridiculous amount of walking we did today, my day was pretty much a vacation day. I went to language class in the morning and as insightful as it was I am glad that the language classes are finally over. After a couple of us went to the gym on campus. I did not realize there would be a lack of gyms in China. People here really do not consider working out a part of their daily routine. If you ask some of the students what they like to do in their spare time almost all of the them will say play ping pong. When we found a gym that was close to our apartments we were all so happy. It has all that we would need in a gym and the membership is really cheap. You can definitely tell that a lot of the Chinese students do not spend a lot of time there because every time I have gone I have seen most of the international students working out in the gym.

Later we all met up and went to the joint institute for lunch, which is our weekly meeting together. After we spent the rest of the day with our language teacher going to the zoo and dinner and later on a boat ride which a few of us skipped out on because we were so tired and wanted to get back. The zoo was pretty nice, nothing that you would expect to see in America. When people say that America is the fattest nation in the world they really are not just referring to the people but also animals. It sounds ridiculous but the animals here, even in the zoo all look like they are starving. I have never seen such a skinny elephant or panda. I have seen the pandas from China at the San Diego Zoo but they are big compared to the pandas here. The elephants are definitely not the best sight. Some of the elephants are full grown adults and yet they look like the baby elephants in America. The zoo looks well kept but I feel really bad for a lot of the animals. Don't get me wrong they are not living in horrible environments and being treated poorly they just do not get the treatment that animals in America do. You do not see zoo personnel walking around and monitoring the animals; the only animals that are really guarded are the pandas, go figure their main attraction. Nonetheless the zoo is definitely something that someone should check out if they come to Beijing.

Another great thing I got to experience today is the core and greatness of China's public transportation. Now that we have our subway and bus cards the program no longer rents a big bus for us to take around the city but instead we use public transportation to get around EVERYWHERE, and because there is so many of us using taxis' would get expensive. The busses here get so crammed you literally cannot breath. Everyone is literally on top of each other and the worst part is is that the temperature here is almost 100 degrees and there is absolutely no air circulation. As for the subway, during the day it is absolutely ridiculously packed and crazy like the bus system but it is very convenient. Having the basic image of what a subway station is like in American I thought China's was going to be soo much worse, I was surprised to see that it is actually a whole lot better and cleaner. The technology and the station is really nice and almost every stop I have been to the station is really well kept. As much as I pick on and complain about it I absolutely love this city, everything about it. Whether I am crammed on the bus or sweating to death on the subway without a seat for 10 stops I am loving every moment of this trip and am so happy to wake up every morning and discover something new I can either complain about or love. This really is one of the best experiences of my life and I cannot help but smile anywhere I am. If I can wake up every morning feeling as happy as I am here for the rest of my life even with the long lines, tired feet, being really hot, and feeling totally helpless in communicating with other people I would still do it forever!