Land of the Dragon
If there is one thing I don't mind spending money on that would be traveling!! I spent a whopping $3500 on my trip to China, this certainly made a dent on my financial statements..but hey u only live once right.
The photos from my Beijing trip are available here.
Ni Hao (means hello -- Nee How)
I spent 2 weeks in Beijing on the study abroad program at Tsinghua University and 4 days in Shanghai. I felt Beijing was a better place to visit than Shanghai. The first thing that surprised me was the amazing investment in infrastructure that the government has made. Due to the Olympics there was construction happening all over Beijing, they were building some fantastic sky-scrapers. I could see construction cranes all over the city.
The food is definitely a culinary delight.. if you know what you are ordering :) we had one mandarin speaking girl in our group of 50 and whenever she was with me I had the chance to try some great food. As long as you are open to eating anything (like me) you will have a great adventure with food.
Some of my friends had wild experiences in restaurants..they were actually making animal sounds to order chicken and beef ...ha ha ha even now I cant stop laughing when I think bout it. Some places I went I pointed at the pictures and I didnt have any problems with my food. I cant forget the cold chicken dish I had in one place..it had some spicy sauce on it which made my lips tingle whenever I blew over it... it felt quite good.
Well in terms of the places we saw..i guess we covered all the famous sites. Some of the must sees are obviously the Tianenmen square, Forbidden Kingdom, Beihai Park, the Great Wall (duhhhh), the Summer Palace, hutong area, San Li Tun area, wangfujing (the food street), the Silk Market & some of the buddhist temples.
The metro system was very well planned and the taxis were super affordable. We were out in the city till 2-3AM on some days and it was perfectly safe to take a taxi back to the hotel.
Since I was walking around with a few tall white Americans we were stopped by girls who wanted to take pictures with us... I am quite certain it was bcos of the American guys and not me ;) A lot of Chinese (i am guessing from out of town) took pictures of my group when we were walking around. It felt kinda weird !!! BUT this would happen only if we are in a group consisting of white people.
We had classes on 8 days till 4PM and then we hit the road to discover
as much of Beijing we possibly could. It was a special moment for me to see the Pandas in the Beijing Zoo. I had wanted to see a Panda at his own country.
& of course we were in Beijing when the earthquake hit the sichuan area, we didnt know that it had caused more than 80,000 deaths. May their souls rest in peace and I hope the remaining affected people are given a chance to restart their lives.
Next post bout my Shanghai trip.
The photos from my Beijing trip are available here.
Ni Hao (means hello -- Nee How)
I spent 2 weeks in Beijing on the study abroad program at Tsinghua University and 4 days in Shanghai. I felt Beijing was a better place to visit than Shanghai. The first thing that surprised me was the amazing investment in infrastructure that the government has made. Due to the Olympics there was construction happening all over Beijing, they were building some fantastic sky-scrapers. I could see construction cranes all over the city.
The food is definitely a culinary delight.. if you know what you are ordering :) we had one mandarin speaking girl in our group of 50 and whenever she was with me I had the chance to try some great food. As long as you are open to eating anything (like me) you will have a great adventure with food.
Some of my friends had wild experiences in restaurants..they were actually making animal sounds to order chicken and beef ...ha ha ha even now I cant stop laughing when I think bout it. Some places I went I pointed at the pictures and I didnt have any problems with my food. I cant forget the cold chicken dish I had in one place..it had some spicy sauce on it which made my lips tingle whenever I blew over it... it felt quite good.
Well in terms of the places we saw..i guess we covered all the famous sites. Some of the must sees are obviously the Tianenmen square, Forbidden Kingdom, Beihai Park, the Great Wall (duhhhh), the Summer Palace, hutong area, San Li Tun area, wangfujing (the food street), the Silk Market & some of the buddhist temples.
The metro system was very well planned and the taxis were super affordable. We were out in the city till 2-3AM on some days and it was perfectly safe to take a taxi back to the hotel.
Since I was walking around with a few tall white Americans we were stopped by girls who wanted to take pictures with us... I am quite certain it was bcos of the American guys and not me ;) A lot of Chinese (i am guessing from out of town) took pictures of my group when we were walking around. It felt kinda weird !!! BUT this would happen only if we are in a group consisting of white people.
We had classes on 8 days till 4PM and then we hit the road to discover
as much of Beijing we possibly could. It was a special moment for me to see the Pandas in the Beijing Zoo. I had wanted to see a Panda at his own country.
& of course we were in Beijing when the earthquake hit the sichuan area, we didnt know that it had caused more than 80,000 deaths. May their souls rest in peace and I hope the remaining affected people are given a chance to restart their lives.
Next post bout my Shanghai trip.
Labels: beijing, Tsinghua University
posted by ssk | 7:01 PM
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