Let the "study" part begin!

Hello again...it's been a busy past few days. Yesterday we climbed 1,930 steps up to the highest point we could of the Great Wall...yes I did count every one of those steps. LOL. Well of course I was too out of breath going up, so I counted them on the way down. The Great Wall is split up into sections and the part we went up was Badaling. When we reached the top there was another study abroad group from Purdue, so we got a group picture. Even though it was hot and tiring...it was well worth it! I hope everyone has the chance to climb it someday :)






The same day we visited Changling, one of the Ming Tombs where 13 emperors were buried in Ming Dynasty. On our way back to the hotel we drove by where the Beijing 2008 Olympics were held. Some pictures I took was the 'water cube' which is where all the swimming events took place. Also, there was the 'birds nest' where all the track and field events were.


I also got to see some friends from Purdue! They just happened to be in Beijing the same time we were there, so I met up with them for a little bit.



Today we went to the imperial palace, which is also known as the "Forbidden City" that symbolizes the imperial and traditional China. Then we went on to Summer Palace, which was a royal garden and a temporary palace for emperors of Qing Dynasty. We had some time before the show so we got to go shopping at Pearl Market...this was my first chance to bargain with the people. It's amazing how the workers will rip you off if you pay their asking price. We were told that whatever price they give us to reduce it by 1/3 and stick the price. If they ask for more you are just to walk off, and more than likely they will go after you and eventually go down to the price you chose as long as you don't give in. LOL

Besides the Great Wall, the Kungfu Show has been my favorite!!! I wish I could have recorded it. The most impressive thing I thought was these boys and men would do backhand springs, but instead of using the hands as they flip back...they used their heads! Wow...I'm still amazed! After the show we had a Peking Duck dinner.

Well that's it for now. Six hours from now we will be leaving Beijing and going to Tianjin. Tomorrow night we will take an overnight sleeper train to Xi'an where we will stay a couple of days before heading to Shanghai.