the mainland

even though hong kong is a territory of china, it has definitely
maintained it's autonomy from the bigger country. so i was excited
to spend some time on the mainland and see how it differed.

on day two of this port, karen and i led our group of 75 from the
ship to the airport, where we were bound to beijing. traveling in
large groups is always a challenge, but usually it's groups the size
of six or more that i dread. it's hard for me to think of myself as
old enough to be seen by others as responsible enough to lead such a
large group into a foreign country. but it was my responsibility,
and i had faith that it was going to be a good time.

our first snafu came as we were checking in for our flight. one of
our students had an expired china visa. she wasn't aware of the fact
that her visa was expired and didn't understand how it could be since
she had just gotten it a couple of days before leaving for semester
at sea. the airlines couldn't give her a boarding pass without a
visa. they suggested that she apply for an emergency visa, which
would be ready by 1:30pm the next day, and then fly to beijing to
meet up with the group then. the problem is that she would then have
to purchase herself a ticket there because the airlines wouldn't
switch her current flight. she was worried about money and didn't
know if she could swing that, so we recommended that she go back to
the ship and talk it over with the deans and possibly call her
parents. it was heart breaking to have to leave her at the airport.
she was so upset and was completely unready to have to head back to
the ship. she had no money and no idea how to even catch public
transportation back. i made her take some of my hong kong dollars so
she could catch a cab rather than deal with the bus. karen and i
gave her hugs and told her we hoped we'd see her in beijing the next
day.

other than that little road bump, our departure went smoothly. it is
a three hour direct flight from hong kong to beijing, most of which i
slept. when we arrived, we were met by grace and amy, two women who
work for peking university and were our hosts for the next few days.

our first stop was dinner. we had a very, very traditional chinese
meal with many courses we couldn't identify. all of what i ate
tasted pretty good, for the most part. after dinner, we headed to
the hotel to check in before heading to the university to meet the
chinese students.

the weather in beijing was very cool...end of fall/beginning of
winter cool. so we were all bundled up as we got out of the buses
and into the building where our meeting would take place. once
inside, the two groups of students mingled about before breaking up
into small groups to walk around the campus. i had been talking to a
student whose english name was Joey, and he ended up taking me on a
tour of the campus. walking around peking university made me very
nostalgic for college. i love college campuses in the fall, so the
cool wind on my face and the leaves around my feet and the scarf
around my neck just made me want to pause the moment and take it all
in. call it a professional side effect, but there's just something
about college campuses in the fall that makes me fall in love with
the collegiate experience all over again. i returned back to the
hotel with a smile on my face as i held on to that feeling during my
tour of the campus.

the next day, we visited a jade factory and learned about how jade
jewelry is made and how to tell the difference between real and
fake. it was interesting, but the problem is that once the tour is
over, you are standing in the middle of a jade store with jewelry
counters surrounding you and very little chance of getting out
without glimpsing at some of the merchandise. fortunately, i made it
out with little, if any, damage to my check book, so i feel good
about that.

after lunch, it was time to head to the great wall...that's right THE
great wall. there are many different sections of the great wall that
people can visit, and we ended up at the juyuang passage, which is an
area of the wall closest to beijing. as we were driving closer to
the drop off point, the wall began to emerge from the foliage along
the sides of the mountains. it was unbelievable. when we got there,
we began the long trek up to the top of the wall, which took about an
hour. there were more steps than i could've counted, and the steps
were all uneven in height. it was a rigorous climb. my thighs and
butt were killing me, but i made it to the top! i was so proud of
myself. the view from the top (the highest point of that section of
the wall) was breathtaking. you could see sections of beijing
through the mountains to one side. on the other side, it was nothing
but mountains and sections of the great wall for as far as the eye
can see. stunningly beautiful.

that night, we had dinner with the chinese students before joining
them for a "party." they had arranged a number of ice breakers and
team builders, and though some of the american students were
skeptical at first, everyone had a great time. we laughed a lot and
sang and danced and laughed some more. it was such a good time that
the american students talked about it for the rest of the trip!

day three began with a trip to tian'anmen square. we wandered around
the square for a while, and i purchased a pair of black gloves off of
a street vendor. i was so cold and now i can say these are my china
gloves!! we briefly were able to get over to silk street market,
which might be one of the best markets we've seen around the world,
but unfortunately we did not have a lot of time. after lunch, we
spent a couple of hours walking around the forbidden city before
heading to a restaurant to have a traditional peking duck dinner.

i had never had duck before, and i was pleasantly surprised at how
yummy it was. especially the peking duck. it had a lovely coating
over it. definitely a good meal. after dinner, we attended a
chinese acrobatic show. these acrobats have an amazing ability to
contort their bodies in directions that are clearly not humanly
normal. i don't know how they do it. they also exhibited such
strength in their legs and their arms in order to be able to do some
of those moves. i sat next to karen, and a number of times she said,
"that's just not right. that's not right."

our final day in beijing began by visiting the summer palace, which
is a sight. it was our last stop before heading to the airport to
fly back to hong kong. when we got to the airport, after thanking
grace and amy for an amazing trip to beijing, some minor chaos ensued.

first, the ticket of one of the students was cancelled and changed
into a paper ticket. the airline was insisting that we had to
produce the paper ticket, otherwise she was going to have to purchase
a new flight. we told them over and over again that we didn't have
paper tickets, only e-tickets. they said we'd have to discuss it
with our travel agent, but since we didn't have phones and hong kong
is a long distance number, that was hopeless. after an hour of
arguing with the airline reps, a random woman from the airline came
running up to the counter and produced the ticket out of an
envelope. at that point, we all started laughing (probably from
delirium) and didn't bother to ask who this woman was or why she had
our ticket. we just checked the student in, got her a boarding pass
and went through security. at this point, our flight had been
delayed for two hours, so all of the students were lounging about the
gate waiting area. to increase the chaos, every SAS trip that had
gone to beijing was sitting in the airport because all flights to
hong kong from beijing had to be delayed due to a military flight
exercise taking place. we weren't sure exactly what that meant or if
it had anything to do with former president bush being in town, but
regardless, we were al stuck in the airport. i'm sure the local
travelers were taken aback by 500 american college students and all
of their backpacks laying about the airport. there were so many of
us that we were everywhere. it was actually kind of comical.
eventually our plane got delayed a bit further and we didn't finally
take off until around 4pm.

it was a long day and by the end of it all of the students were
cranky and hungry, which only made me crankier and hungrier. by the
time we arrived to the ship, it was already time to line up to get
back on by on-ship time, which meant no more hong kong for me. i was
kind of bummed because i was looking forward to one more meal off the
ship, but that was just going to have to wait until we arrived in japan.