While I’m sure it wouldn’t surprise you to hear that we’re all playing spin the bottle and making out with each other in closets, that’s not what’s happening here. Today we did a nice tour of downtown Beijing, seeing the Forbidden City, Tian’anmen Square, and the Temple of Heaven. After a rough start to the tour in Forbidden City with the whole “Vandy Pause” situation (let’s walk at a crawling pace and spend half our time standing still) we eventually were able to split up a little bit and move more quickly through the place. It was incredibly beautiful, and even more incredible to think about the place as the Emperor’s guarded home. There were way too many people there though for me to spend time reading about each building or to check out every exhibit—I have a tough time being the tourist with the big-ass camera AND the headphones guided tour (just the camera is bad enough). We ate lunch right inside the gate of the Forbidden City, and I don’t think I’ve ever had to pee as badly as I did at this moment. There were no bathrooms without going outside of the gate, a gate which about 300 people walk through every minute—there was no chance of finding my group if I had left. The bathroom turned out to be about 300m away anyways, so it was good I didn’t go looking for it myself.
Tiananmen Square was just what I expected. We took sexual photos with the obelisk monument in the middle of the plaza—yes, we were those guys. We almost lost my roommate, Eamon, here—he’s always running off to take pictures or something, maybe he sees something shiny, who knows. He’s really quite a character, but it was no surprise to us when we started to leave and he wasn’t with us. He came back to us though, and we moved on with our day.
Temple of Heaven was next, and we spent a very efficient 60 minutes here, the first time on the trip I’ve felt like we didn’t spend enough time somewhere. Zach and I managed to break away from the big group and wander around—it was absolutely beautiful (as you can see). Apparently, Friday is senior citizen day and the place was crawling with them. There were about 4 impromptu choirs (with 4-part harmonies), karaoke, knitting, and card playing going on. There was even a little bit of a jam sesh happening. The biggest kicker was that we were given 60 minutes, and Zach and I were back at the meeting spot one minute early—everyone else (including the 3 teachers!) strolled up 20 minutes late. So much for being responsible.
The rest of this post is going to be dedicated to Pyro Pizza. This place is in the same Wudaokou place that we went dancing before, right next to Propaganda actually. You walk down a flight of stairs and it’s like you’ve entered an American frat house. They’ve got Pi Rho banners everywhere, “Wudaokou University” flags (not a real university), and they serve incredible pizza and beer by the pitcher. Last night was a beer pong tournament, and it turned out to be a lot of fun. It was slow getting started but by the end of the night there was lots of people (mostly white) playing, it got pretty crazy. While we were waiting for the intensity to pick up, we played some games with the manager of the club and his friend, and we played flip cup. These guys have a really good life. After getting eliminated in the first round, Zach and I walked back and got ready for today. People are talking about going out tonight—I don’t think I’ll make it.
