Beijing

So, I neglected to say this earlier, and I just realized that it might be an interesting idea to post about my trip to Beijing. I wrote up a summary to send to mis amigos, so I'll just post it on the blog. I did get tired of being descriptive, so just listed a few things.

So, let me tell you a little bit about Beijing in general (and despite some of my comments, I did have a good time). First of all, you can't see the sky. It isn't blue, but is covered in white, almost grey smog. And it's really hazy. You can't see off of the highway without things getting blurry. And the air smells funny.
Another thing is shopkeepers. Whenever you walk by store, they shout, "hey girl, hey girl!" trying to get you to come in. And if you enter the shop, they pick up all this stuff and show it to you, trying to get you to buy it. One guy followed me around for 10 minutes.... It's almost impossible to get out without buying something. It gets really annoying. And if you leave without buying something, they will sometimes shout after you, or CHASE you. I had one guy screaming at me. And you have to barter. Because things are really over-priced unless you haggle.
And drivers are crazy. They do whatever they feel like.
Many of us also lost a lot of weight due to the food. It was all fried food, and during lunch and dinner, all some kids ate was rice since some of the food was pretty gross (breakfast had at least some familiar foods). There was hardly any fresh food. And there was a lot of tea. The second-to-last day faced us with whole fish and whole shrimp. That means head, eyes, fins and skin (for the fish) and legs and shells (for the shrimp). I kinda lost my appetite...
Parts of China are pretty dirty and run-down...
Our days were packed with activities. Even though it was exciting, it’s nice to be home and just relax.

So, since it was a trip with our music group, we did have a few concerts. I was “lucky” enough to play in the orchestra, band, and choir. That means there was only 1 song in the whole performance that I didn’t play, and that was for only strings (I play flute, if you don’t know, and I also sing alto). Lucky is in quotes because three groups means a lot of work, a lot of practices, and a lot of hassle switching from group to group during performances. I was one of five out of 200 people who was in all three groups. I did have one solo too, in a song called Farandole. It’s a song you might recognize, even if you don’t know the name of it.
We visited pearl, jade, enameling, and silk factories throughout the trip.
We visited the Forbidden City and saw a kung-fu performance.
So, we visited the Great Wall and had a heart attack climbing up the infinite stairs. Literally once we got to the bottom, our legs were twitching.
We got to ride in rickshaws! That was really fun. And since our whole group went at once and it’s only 2 people per rickshaw (there can’t be more since it’s powered by a guy on a squeaky bicycle) we had a whole fleet of little rickshaws rolling down the road. We stopped at a famous bridge, but I can’t remember the name of it. And some random Chinese lady came up and took a picture with me. That was really strange…
We took a tai-chi lesson and attended a traditional tea ceremony.
So, for our last we decided to donate all proceeds to the victims of the big earthquake China had not long ago. And you know what? The government got involved and they recorded the concert (there were a few people who played Chinese music before us-they were fantastic) and we got aired all over China! There were even a few people in America with foreign channels that saw us on TV!!! We're famous! Maybe...
We went to the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven.
We saw a Chinese acrobatics show.
We visited the zoo and got to see the pandas, and we went to the Lama temple (for strange people, this is not a llama temple).
It's a 15 hour jet lag. And 12 hours on the plane robs you of any coordination you have. I was literally staggering to the baggage claim.

You can google clips of our performance on Youtube. Search Aragon High School, Beijing and you should find some.
Here's the blog that was kept of our trip.
http://www.jerryworks.net/aragon/