Day 1: So much HEAT!
Written by Charlie...
After a night of delicious food from a restaurant near the hotel, we woke up this morning with great anticipation for the day ahead. Unfortunately most of this anticipation was covered by the fog of jetlag, but we pressed on.
We arrived at the language class where we were greeted by Chang Cui who would be our teacher. She showed us around the school and then we proceeded to learn the basics and how to order food.
After that we found ourselves at a Sichuan style restaurant eating very spicy food. We then took turns freaking out about how spicy the food was. Our mouths will never be the same...
We then made our way over the Forbidden City, which had much to offer the in way of Chinese history, but was incredibly hot. Although the first couple of sections were under shady trees, the main section was very open, and is under the only blue part of the Beijing sky we have seen so far, making it unbearably hot. After we finished walking through the palace, which left us practically waterless, we walked across Tiananmen square where, we were told, the ground can reach a temperature of 50 degrees celcius. Wearing jeans was not the best choice. Luckily there was water in our air-conditioned bus. I'm going to take a very cold shower now and it is going to be so nice. So very nice.