When I consider the fact that I never slept from Friday until Sunday night, those three days blurred together, and I came to think of them as one day. On Friday we arrived back on campus and ‘spent the night’ in Tower A. However, since we had to leave for the airport at 2:15 a.m., I thought there would be no point in sleeping for only a few hours. So, most of us on the China trip hung around until it was time to depart. I’m still not sure why we had to leave for the airport so early. We arrived before most of the workers, so we had to wait to check our bags. All I can really say about Saturday is that there was a lot of waiting. Waiting to board the first flight, then a 5-hour layover in Dulles before we could actually board the plane that would take us to China. Then there was the 13-hour plane ride itself.

The first thing I noticed when we started our decent into the Beijing airport was that it was perfectly sunny outside, but the sky was not blue. Instead, it was this pale grey color, almost like clouds but it filled the air like smoke. I was not expecting to see the pollution so clearly. I knew Beijing had issues with pollution, but it was strange to see a sky that was a such a different color. We got to the hotel with no issues, surprisingly. I don’t know how people drive in this city. There are buses, cars, mopeds, bicyclists, and some vehicles that I’ve never seen before. There seems to be no rules of the road because everyone just kind of drives how they want. It makes crossing the street kind of hazardous. The hotel was very nice. I liked how the lobby was almost a lounge type of room because it had a drink station and pool table.

Dinner was an adventure. We sat at these tables where the center rotates. It reminded me of a big lazy Susan. What happens is, that instead of everyone ordering their own separate meal, all of the food is put in the center of the rotating table and shared family style. When the food is served, at first, they only bring out a few plates of food. You can almost think of them as appetizers because usually these plates are not something that’s very filling and they are brought out slowly. Then it is like an onslaught. They bring out dish after dish so fast you might not see everything that is put on the table. Even if you take a little bit of everything you still end up full. One highlight of that dinner was that we got to have Peking Duck. I have never had duck before and I was surprised how much I liked it. Of course, we had to use chopsticks. I am not very skilled with chopsticks, so eating was somewhat of a slow battle, especially when it came to eating noodles.