Beijing

We went to Beijing for a few days, because we had a week vacation (because China recognizes May 1st as a national holiday, and I think the school also wanted an excuse to have a longer break.)

So, my parents arranged to rent camping equipment for one night, from a company that helps organize camping trips on the Great Wall, in the less touristy areas. So we slept on the Great Wall for one night, also as a birthday celebration for John. (He's now twelve.) It was really fun, and we pretended that we were defending against the Mongols. The only problem was that night, when we realized that we only had a little bit of water left and there wasn't time to hike down and get more. So we didn't have any water to drink that morning, which was fine, because we were leaving relatively early anyway, but still annoying.

The driver we had to take us to the wall and back the next morning really liked John. It was cute.

After that we spent two nights in a small hotel in the middle of the city, amid the traditional hutong villages. There was a lot we planned to do but didn't get to, partly because some of them were closed when we went there and also because it's really hard to navigate, between the long line interchanges at the subway stations and the taxis that wouldn't stop for us. But, all in all, it was great. We went to the Forbidden City - which is, surprisingly, called simply the Palace Museum by the Chinese, who usually give places very poetic names. I think we would have been more amazed by it if we hadn't already been living in China for the past eight-and-a-half months. It was still amazing, it's just... we've already seen a ton of traditional Chinese buildings. While that doesn't make any of them less unique or amazing, it does mean that they don't have the same charm to them as they do to someone who has never seen one before except in photographs.

We also tried to go to the Beijing Underground City, which is a large expanse of underground tunnels built under Chairman Mao's regime, designed to support most of the citizens of Beijing in case nuclear war with Russia broke out. Unfortunately, the tunnels are have been closed for renovation since February last year. We're hoping this means that they'll open again soon, and that they are going to open up more tunnels to the public (instead of just making it more commercialized.)

The other thing we didn't get to see was Mao's Mausoleum, where you can see the embalmed remains of the great Chairman himself. The thing is, it's only open for a few hours and on certain days, so, although we tried to take this into account, it still wasn't open when we tried to go there.

All in all, we like Shanghai better (and better yet is Hong Kong), but we still are glad we went there.

We also had dinner one night in a restaurant that advertises itself as "American Home Cooking" with the "best burgers in town," but I'd say that's not quite true. These were the first real burgers I've had since we were in Hong Kong over Christmas. (The western restaurants in China frequently serve "burgers" with minuscule patties so you have to take two bites of nothing but bread and vegetables before reaching the small morsel of over-cooked beef.)

I got my braces Wednesday the week before last. They didn't hurt at all when they put them in. (I slept through the whole process.) However, my mouth felt really sore for a few days afterward. I'm also need to get used to the fact that my front teeth are almost un-useable, so when I was eating corn-on-the-cob I had to cut the corn off before I could even get it into my mouth.