Beijing

Waking up today was rough. After doing so much walking the past few days I really just wanted to enjoy some rest, however plans awaited and I eventually gave in. Since I have been sick I haven't been able to run at all so I headed up to the gymnasium and found a relatively working treadmill to use for a short 15 minute run. After I showered and packed up my stuff my mom and I caught a quick breakfast in the hotel before taking to the subway to head to the Shanghai rail station, where we would get a bullet train to Beijing. When we entered the subway there were so many people that when the train started no one even could fall over if they weren't holding on. After nearly an hour on the subway we got off in the railway station and having already watched a video on getting tickets we did it easily. We also stopped for some famous egg tarts, which were good and strange at the same time. After we got our tickets, actually managing to find our entrance gate was quite a challenge, but after asking some station officers we figured it out. Getting on the train was a breeze and it left exactly on time. On the train I watched a movie, wrote my blog for yesterday, and looked out of the window at the ever-changing scenery. I was able to see much of Shanghai as well as many farms and more rural areas with temples, pagodas, and statues. A complimentary snack box was given to us and we had no idea how to tell what each item was other than opening it and giving it a shot. I liked 2 of 4 items, crackers and unidentifiable yellow things. After taking a little nap I woke up in Beijing and my mom grew quite concerned when she got a glimpse of my eye. As if my miserably runny nose, cough, and ears still being affected by the pressure in the plane weren't enough, I have and eye infection now.

With some difficulty my mom was able to figure out what metro ticket to buy and which subway route to take. We had two transfers after getting on our first train and once we did get out of our station we still had to haul all of our luggage down crowded Beijing alleys until finally finding our hotel, which is quite quaint. Upon our arrival we asked the women at the front desk to help us find a doctor to look at my eye. They agreed, wrote a note, and sent someone with my mom, dad, and I to a local hospital to translate. When we first got to the hospital we had trouble finding anyone to help us. We continued to wander until finding the infection area where two nurses were. The woman from our hotel spoke to them, explaining my situation and they seemed not to care much. In fact, they denied me care because they got off of work at 5:00 and we were an hour too late. Also, they wouldn't treat foreigners because of some paper work. We headed to a nearby pharmacy and the man working there was very helpful and got me eye drops and an oral pill to take. Our translator wasn't sure what the English word for what I have is and my mom wasn't sure how to say it in Chinese so Google translate told us it was conjunctivitis, not too bad.

Next we headed straight to the meeting point for our Beijing dinner food tour. Our group consisted of my family, minus Hannah obviously, a Polish man, one Californian, and one that I'm not sure about, but had an accent. We first had Mongolian hot pot, where you basically dip veggies and meat into boiling water to cook it, sesame seed sauce, dumplings, and plum juice. On the way to one of our other stop my leg was spritzed with throw up by a drunk man. Next we stopped for more Jianbing, donkey burgers, noodles, chicken wings, kebob bread, and a fruit for dessert that I can't remember the name of. The man who made the chicken wings was quite charismatic an unafraid to whip off his shirt to show off tattoos of his favorite communist leaders. After we headed back to the hotel, extremely tired and ready for tomorrow's adventure on hiking the Great Wall of China.

I may not have a wifi connection for a couple of days so stay tuned...