Beijing+Day+3

Katherine took Allie's place writing about our last day in Beijing since Allie came down with stomach issues last night and focused on recovery today. (Note to parents: she stayed with us throughout the day and recovered steadily. She was a real trooper, especially at the start when she felt her worst.) More photographs from our day can be found in the Shutterfly "[|China 3 Beijing Summer Palace]."

Here's Katherine's contribution:

Monday was the busiest day yet. We had three different sites to see, a Peking duck lunch to attend, and the overnight train ride to Xi’ An (which we were all excited for at the time). The first stop was the Hutong Tour. Here we went on a rickshaw ride through the neighborhoods, attended a drum ceremony (which in the olden times was used, along with the bell tower, to tell the time of day), and saw the house of a modern day Hutong family. I was particularly excited to see how the “modern family” lived because after all the historic sites we visited, I was anxious to learn more of China in the present. The house that we visited was particularly interesting since the eldest son (Weichao Liu) is currently living in Houston, Texas, working as a Kung Fu teacher (interesting fact: he will be competing for the U.S. Kung Fu team in the 2012 Olympics). Overall, I was slightly surprised to see the run down, trash filled, and crowded areas in which they lived.

The Peking duck lunch was by far the best. It was one of the first times that I truly felt full on this vacation (and that is a big deal). Everyone (excluding Caitlin) chowed it down and was ready for the next stop (Summer Palace).

The Summer Palace was truly a sight to see, however I’d have to say the empress went a little overboard with the extravagance of it all. We were all really excited to try a Magnum Ice Cream Bar, which has become a new favorite. Overall, we were starting to lose some energy due to heat, but we were excited to see the next stop, the Olympic site.

Driving toward the site we noticed an instant change in the air quality as well as the clean streets and upscale apartment buildings. China tried very hard to impress the world in order to improve their reputation, when in reality people who went to the Olympics had no idea of what they should be seeing. The Hutong streets house millions of people, and the conditions that they live in are polar opposites of the conditions around the Olympics. Once we got into the Bird’s Nest, we all walked around and explored the stadium. We even discovered some clean toilets, and that’s a big deal around here.

Now we were off to what we thought was going to be the Hogwart’s Express. Turns out it was really a train just for Doby, Kreatcher, and their friends. There were four bunks in each “cabin” aka the size of a bathroom. We barely slept, it was full of smoke, bathrooms were disgusting, our throats were dry, there were no “snacks off the trolley,” we were in bad moods, the blankets had stains on them. It was a rough night to say the least. But we all arrived having slept at least a little and ready to explore a new city.