I am writing this week’s entry from a spacious hotel room overlooking the Bird’s Nest stadium and the rest of Olympic Park in Beijing! I had a bit of a surprise at work last Wednesday evening when Jun Li brought Brad and I in for a routine meeting and in addition invited me accompany him on a business trip to Beijing! For our last week of work, Brad and I naively thought we could leisurely wrap up our current assignments and enjoy a more slow-paced, restful week before heading stateside. Of course our office had no such ideas, and in keeping with the hectic pace of Xian Dai and our internship thus far, we were given plenty of additional assignments to keep us more than busy for our last week. We left our meeting with Jun Li in a bit of a daze as he had informed us of the deadlines and criteria due for our current two projects and additionally introduced a brand new project for which two new iterations needed to be designed and modeled by the following Wednesday morning. I wasn’t sure how a trip to Beijing would fit in with all of these deadlines, but I was willing to make it work!
For our last weekend in China, Brad, Misha, Tina and I set out to cross a few remaining sights off our must-see list. First we investigated a small-animal, insect, and plant market in Old Town I had read about and was interested in visiting after reading as far as “small-animal”. The market is spread throughout the ground level of a block of traditional longtang alleyways and two-story dwelling/shops- similar to the Tianzifang Art Street we visited last weekend. Unlike Tianzifang, this market has no upscale, artsy aspirations or even a desire to attract tourists as its very unsouvenir-like business is selling pets. I thoroughly enjoyed exploring the maze of crowded alleyways and viewing the unexpected variety of plants, animals, and pet supplies for sale. The animal selection offered the largest variety of turtles I have ever seen, an abundance of colorful squawking birds in beautiful wooden cages, glittering goldfish of all shapes and sizes, crickets, crickets, and more crickets, a large selection of rodents, and of course adorable fluffy kittens and puppies! From my observations, it seems the Chinese like their dogs to be small and fluffy, which of course aligns with my puppy preference as well, and I even saw a puppy identical to Shelby!! I spent way too much time trying to get a good picture of her but she wouldn’t sit still. Mom and Dad, you can rest assured that I restrained from making any rash purchases at the small-animal market, and I should make it through customs without any problems tomorrow.
Although I was glad to visit the pet market, the top priority on our list for the day was visiting the observation deck of the World Financial Center. This skyscraper defines the skyline of Pudong, (the East side of the Huangpu River), and is currently the tallest building in Shanghai, (although soon to be surpassed by 450 feet in 2014 with the completion of the Shanghai tower). The World Financial Center boasts the highest observation level in the world at the 101st level, 1,600 feet in the air, and we were hoping for a clear evening to see Shanghai from a new perspective. Considering I can count on one hand the number of days I’ve seen blue overhead while in Shanghai, the weather was decent enough and the evening lights of Pudong and the Bund on the West side of the river were a beautiful sight. We also got a bird’s eye view of the neighboring Jin Mao tower, the second tallest building in the city. Afterwards, we made a quick visit to the hotel lobby of the Jin Mao tower to have a refreshment and to take in the 33-story atrium overhead that runs the entire height of the hotel.
Sunday was easily the highlight of my weekend if not of the whole trip. Brad and I were invited to join our coworkers for a Xian Dai organized social outing to Chongming Island, an island about an hour and a half North East of the city, located at the convergence of the Yangtze River and the East China Sea. Misha tagged along as well and per usual, the three of us really had no clue what was on the agenda. We were all surprised and excited to spend the day at a large wooded park enjoying a delicious bbq, riding paddle boats and bumper cars, rock climbing, and even riding down a zip line! My favorite activity by far was cruising all over the park along shaded winding paths on tandem bikes. Our whole office of almost 20 was out on bikes and it was quite a sight! Thankfully I got a rest on the bus ride back to Shanghai because that evening I was joining a few girls from work to see the James Blunt concert. Apparently he is quite popular with the girls here and for the couple weeks leading up to the concert, the topic of discussion at lunch was always how handsome he is. Although I am familiar with his music, I agreed to go mostly because I thought it would be interesting to see a concert while in Shanghai and he was playing at the Cultural Center at the World Expo site which looks like a giant UFO. It was a wonderful evening and a lot of fun although I may be hesitant to see any of my favorite bands while in China because the crowds are a little too tame. James Blunt even made a joke about being told performing here would be like playing before an audience at the cinema, which got a good laugh. To be fair though, James Blunt is more of a melodic singer and the floor audience was standing for a few of the more popular upbeat songs.
Monday and Tuesday were busy days at work as Brad and I were trying to wrap everything up for our Wednesday morning deadline and before I headed off for Beijing. I wasn’t actually told when I would be going or for how long until the night before and felt a little unprepared to jet set off for two days right before flying back to the states, but I simply could not miss such a great opportunity. Unfortunately Jun Li knew that Brad was traveling to Beijing with friends the following week, and since the opportunity could only be for one person, I got the invitation. Again, I was not sure what the agenda was for the trip but soon realized that Jun Li was sending me and a fellow coworker up a day early so I could enjoy some of the sights. My coworker Liu Gong is relatively familiar with Beijing and served as my tour guide. Liu Gong seems to be one of the busiest in our office and rarely has a day off even on the weekends. Although our communication was limited due to the language barrier, and he was probably worried about work the whole time, I hope he enjoyed spending a day out of the office. I felt less like an employee and more like a special guest while in Beijing, as I was taxied around from site to site, given my own spacious hotel room, and fed many fantastic meals. What a memorable end to two months at Xian Dai!
Beijing is the second largest city in China and like Shanghai, requires much more than two days to fully appreciate; although I think we made a good attempt in our limited time. I enjoyed seeing the famous Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square as well as some modern architecture including the Center for Performing Arts, the National Library, and Olympic Park with the Bird’s Nest Stadium and the Water Cube Aquatics Center. Liu Gong also took me to Wangfujing Snack Street which is exactly what the name implies- a crowded pedestrian street lined with food vendors offering an amazing assortment of Chinese cuisine from all over the country. I wish I had been prepared and been more hungry! I will only briefly mention my sightseeing tour of Beijing as it is late and I am leaving tomorrow for the U.S. I also need to save some stories to share with everyone when I return!
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