by Daniel Chen
Today was the last day we saw our exchange students. Getting to school at around 7 AM, we made sure to give our exchange students an emotional goodbye before getting on the bus and heading to Beijing.
After a 30 minute bus ride to the train station, followed by a 2.5 hour train ride, we finally managed to arrive at Beijing.
First thing on our checklist was getting lunch. We ate at a place called the Mei Zhou Dong Po restaurant; which actually had food from both Beijing and Szechuan cuisines.
After filling up, we then visited Tiananmen Square and the forbidden city.
Within Tiananmen Square, the first thing we managed to see was Chairman Mao’s mausoleum, or his grave. After a tour around the place, we managed to catch a glimpse at various government buildings and interesting statues(which we promptly took photos off).
Next stop was Gu Gong, or the forbidden city. On the front, we could see a picture of Chairman Mao, as well as the words “The people of this world will be friendly for 10,000 years” to his left and right.
Within the palace, we could see various rooms and buildings, including the emperor’s bedroom, the dining hall, etc. We learned a couple of fun facts from our tour guides as well. For instance, the emperor in china has 27 different beds, arranged in a maze-like shape to confuse would-be assassins of the emperor.
After that, we went to the Hongqiao street market to shop around. Here, you can find a wide variety of items, like magnets, toys, electronic devices, clothing, and shoes, sold for a cheap price(usually under 100 dollars). However, most brand-name products here are ripoffs due to their price. After about an hour of shopping, a lot of us went home with ripoff Yeezys, Louis Vuitton bags, and electronics.
The last thing we did was eating dinner at Hua’s resturaunt. Apparently, a lot of celebrities and world leaders had ate here. The food was overall pretty nice; as we got a taste of Peking Duck, fried eggplant, Chinese mushrooms, and a lot more.
Overall, the day was quite fun for the last night we would spend in China.