Beijing
It’s hard to believe that I left for China less than a week
ago, because it seems like it has already been so long since I was back at home
in North Carolina. Currently I’m on the
night train to Xian, so I’ve finally got some downtime to type up a post about
Beijing. After the long process of
flying into Beijing, which took over 24 hours, (over 36 with the time change)
we finally made it to our hotel in Beijing.
When we got to the hotel we all had to give the front desk our
passports, as people who are not Chinese citizens have to register where they
are staying. After registering and
receiving our room keys, it was after 11 PM here in China, so we all tried to
get some sleep after the long travel day.
Our hotel was located right in the center of Beijing, so
after breakfast we walked from our hotel to The Forbidden City, which was only
about 10 minutes away. There are
bicycles and mopeds everywhere here in the city, in addition to crazy
drivers. There is a near constant sound
of car horns on the streets, and the bicycles just zip fearlessly out in front
of these cars at intersections. On the
larger roads there are large bike lanes because there are so many bicycles.
The entrance to The Forbidden City is located right on Tiananmen
Square, so we took a quick stop there first.
The street that is in between Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City is
so big (7 lanes each way, plus two large bike lanes) that you have to go
through a tunnel under the street to get to the square.
Tiananmen Square and the entrance to The Forbidden City (I hadn’t figured out
the exposure settings on my camera at this point yet)
Inside
the Forbidden City
The Forbidden City is the palace that the emperors lived in
after the capital was moved from Nanjing (which means South Capital) to Beijing
(which means North Capital). All of the
signs were in both Chinese and English, so we were actually able to read the
signs at the exhibits and learn about what we were seeing. The Chinese architecture was amazing, and
the gardens in The Forbidden City were beautiful. One interesting fact about
The Forbidden City is that there are huge metal pots all over. These pots were once filled with water, in
the case of a fire because the whole structure is wood and Fires were quite
common. Our last stop was to the
Buddhist temple across the street from The Forbidden City, which was elevated
so you could see a bird’s eye view of the entire Forbidden City from the top.
The main focus of Day 2 in China was seeing The Great Wall
of China. Our tour guide came to pick us
up in the morning, and we drove out of Beijing to the wall. On the car ride out of Beijing, The scope of
how huge this city truly is finally hit me.
Beijing is about three times bigger than New York City. As we drove out of the city, we passed
through the city gates and the City just kept on going. There were so many high rise apartment
buildings, and even more being constructed.
In some places it looked like an entire new city was being constructed
at once with all of the apartment buildings that are now needed to accommodate
the population in Beijing.
Actually being at The Great Wall of China was an amazing
experience. There were a lot of people
there as it was a Saturday, and some locals come to The Great Wall as a way to
escape the city during the weekend.
Another thing about China is that I am somewhat of a
spectacle to the people of China. Dr.
Franzen told me that many of the Chinese tourists at the wall may have come
from farther away and could have never seen a white person before in their
life. People wanted to take pictures
with us, and they would openly stare at you and take pictures of you. This also happened on our first day at
Tianmen. Dr. Franzen got someone to take
a group photo of us and locals started jumping in wanting to take pictures with
us. It was a really interesting
experience, because here I was at the Great Wall of China – which is such an
amazing, beautiful place, and people wanted to take pictures with me. It was surreal.
One of the people who wanted to take a picture of us at The Great Wall
After the wall we headed to lunch, and then got on our way
to The Ming Tombs. The Ming Tombs are where
the 13 emperors of the Ming Dynasty were buried. Each emperor had a huge tomb built for him,
and construction for these tombs were started when the Emperor was as young as
20. One of my favorite parts of the Ming
Tombs was the gate that was the entrance to all of the tombs, which was called
the Yin Yang Gate. This gate was the
gateway between the world of the living and the dead, as when most people
passed that gate they never came back alive.
The people who buried the emperor were sealed in the tomb with him, as
they knew the exact location and the valuables that the emperor was buried
with. As we walked back out of the gate when we were leaving, we had to shake
the dust off of ourselves and say ‘I am coming home,’ in Chinese so that we
would re-enter the world of the living.
The Whole Group at the Ming Tombs
Our third day in Beijing started with taking cabs over to
The Temple of Heaven. The Temple of
Heaven was one of the Emperors temples, and it was also where sacrifices were performed. What was really cool about this place for me
was that the locals used it as a park.
It was a big hang out spot for the locals, who were all playing their
own versions of badminton, hacky sack, and other outdoor activities. At one
part of the park area of the temple there were at least 50 people all doing
sort of line dances to music together.
Trying to join in the dances was a fun experience for me.
Temple of Heaven
The afternoon was a free
afternoon for us, so Hadi, Judy, Sarah, and I decided to go to Wangfujing,
which is a very westernized part of the city.
We all did a bit of shopping for souvenirs and gifts for everyone there,
and then went to the mall that is on the street. The mall was absolutely huge, and it was
interesting to see which American brands were there and it was also interesting
to see the Chinese brands as well.
Day four was our last day in Beijing, so we all packed up
our bags before heading down to breakfast.
After breakfast we walked over to Tiananmen Square again, to see the
People’s museum. Upon arriving we
figured out that all of the museums were closed because it was a Monday. After walking around the part of the square
we didn’t see the first day, we took the subway back to our hotel. The subway is really modern, and it was easy
to navigate as everything was in both Chinese and English. The one thing that was surprising to me on
the subway was the sheer amount of people that were squished into each one of
these trains. There is no such thing as
your own personal bubble on the Chinese subway.
In the afternoon we went to a Buddhist temple, Jietai Temple. This temple was the second largest Buddhist
temple in China, and it was absolutely beautiful. Unlike many of the other stops in Beijing,
this wasn’t much of a tourist location, so it was very quiet and peaceful. There was a garden and there were trees that
were about 1000 years old. Our tour
guide also taught me a lot about Buddhism while we were there. For example, I didn’t know that there were 3
different Buddhas: past, present, and future Buddha. The temple didn’t take as long as planned, so
since we had a while before we needed to head back to Beijing to catch our
night train, we sat in the gardens and Dr. Franzen talked a little about what
we will be learning and some options for our research projects. It was so peaceful sitting there in the
gardens. Also, who in the world can say
they’ve had a Chemistry lesson at a Buddhist temple?
Jeitai Temple
From there we went to the train station in Beijing, where we
got on our night train to Xian.
More updates about Xian coming soon!
-
Kirsty
I’ve already been in Hangzhou for about three weeks now, and
as you might have noticed from the complete lack of blog posts: I’ve been
really busy. Hangzhou is located in the
Zhejiang province of China, and I’m staying and studying at Zhejiang University
for the remainder of our trip. For the
study portion of this study abroad trip, I am taking two classes: Physical Chemistry
and I’m also getting credit for research I’m doing while abroad. Physical Chemistry has been challenging to
say the least, since we are taking what is usually a 16 week class in 4 weeks. But the research portion of my studies has
been a really cool experience so far.
I’m working in Professor Yu Hongwei’s lab alongside one of his grad
students, Guo Fei, and we are working with making mutant proteins and
determining their enantioselectivity.
Being involved in the lab is not only cool for the scientific techniques
and knowledge I’m learning, but also because I get to really get to know some
Chinese graduate students. Everyone in
the lab is so welcoming and friendly.
