Third and Fourth Day

Announcments: I have purchased a few gifts for people. We leave tomorrow for Tianjin where we will be staying at HUT overnight.

Third Day-We started off our day by grabbing breakfast at the restaurant that we have been going to since we got here. The owners were very happy to see us and we had our usual of meat buns. Very tasty. After breakfast we parted ways with our professor for the morning. The group headed to the Beijing Olympic grounds, while our professor met with some friends and took care of a few other things.
As our professor put it, "This will be a test to see if you can get around using your language skills". Luckily the Olympic Grounds is located right on the subway route. It was very easy to find, and we didn't have to ask many directions. The Olympic Grounds were very nice and CLEAN. However, there were no trees to provide any shade and the weather was quite hot. We made our way towards the Olympic Stadium, better known as the Bird's Nest. It was very interesting to witness this massive structure up close and we were able to go inside and walk around. The stadium is extremely nice, and it was fun to walk up to the very highest point. However, because of the warm weather we decided to leave the Olympic Stadium afterwards.
After that, we headed to the 798 Art District. The 798 Art District is a series of various art galleries. We saw some great copper sculptures, and oil paitings. Also, we took a look at Chinese contemporary art. I still don't understand contemporary art. The gallery that I enjoyed the most was the North Korean art gallery. There was propoganda and human suffering paintings. I'm not too big into art, except for photography so I didn't take too much interest into the rest of the galleries that we visited.
Once we were done with the 798 Art District we headed back to our hostel. We met up with our professor and went back to the Wang Fu Xing Market. I was able to purchase Mao's Little Red Book, and some gifts for friends. It was fun to barter with the street venders. The weather throughout the day made us all very tired and we soon went back to the hostel and all went to sleep fairly early. That is why I didn't post anything yesterday.

Fourth Day-Today started with us splittng from our professor. He had to do some research at the Beijing National Library while we visited the Great Wall of China. We first took the subway and then a city bus out to the great wall. It was about an hour's worth of travel. The Great Wall is absolutely stunning. I was blown away by how far the Wall stretched. It went as far as the eye could see. We were able to climb up the Wall, and was that quite the stair master. We were constantly climb up an incline or stairs. My legs felt like jello once we made it to the end where they allow visitors to go. The best part about the Wall was that we went the other direction than the majority of the tourists. There was a point in our climb that we were the only people in a 200 yard stretch. Apartently that is very rare as the Great Wall gets a lot of tourists at all times. We took some great pictures which I will be posting tomorrow.
Going to the Great Wall of China is an experience that I believe everyone should take if they are able to. Just being at one of the seven ancient wonders of the world was humbling. It really makes me appreciate the accomodations that I have in the U.S. So after we were done walking around we made our way back to Bejing. We grabbed some dinner which consisted of Donkey Meat, yep...DONKEY meat. It was actually very very good. Try it sometime. Once we had our fill of Donkey we met up with our professor and walked down to the Bai Hui Bar District. We didn't get anything to drink but just went and looked around. The District has a very cool lay out. There are bars on both sides and a small canal going down the middle. It wasn't very packed because it is a monday night. But it was still nice to go and walk around for a bit.
Well it is now close to midnight, I am extremely tired. We have to get up very early tomorrow morning to go and watch people do Tai Chi at the park. It should be interesting.
Good night for now, and check my blog tomorrow for some pictures.