Journal Day 4: June 10th

Journal Day 4: June 10^th

What did we do today? Zai Jian Beijing! Ni Hao Xian!

v Got up, finished packing, breakfast, leave hotel

v Plane (food on the plane… preserved egg? Very black and very smelly)

v Off plane and got luggage

v Went to see the Old City Wall

v Lunch

v Jade shop

v Big Wild Goose Pagoda

v Hotel

v Dinner

v Out on the street

v Tang Dynasty Dancing show

Prompt: Free Write!

So… This morning we went to the airport to fly into Xian. I was surprised at the airport security there. Here’s my shortened crazy airport story:

We are all standing in line to get our bags checked, chugging our water because after we checked our bags we had to go through security. Since we were a group it took a really long time for them to approve all of our bags. Natalie wasn’t feeling good, and was close to puking. We were all trying to help her and make her feel better. Once all of our bags go through and I thought we were good to go, Mr. Ewen comes over and asks me if there’s something in my bag that shouldn’t be there. I said no, and walked over to the lady who had stopped my bag. She didn’t speak English so David was translating for me… well; he was trying the best he could… I still didn’t know what was going on. The lady kept asking if I had a lighter (can’t take on plane ~ some people in our group did have them, and security took them). I told her I didn’t, and she had me open my bag as she showed me the dot she saw on the screen. It was, of course, at the very bottom of my bag. The bottom. Of an overly stuffed bag. Great. After she had looked as far down as she could, she got annoyed and walked away. David didn’t say anything, so I had no idea what to do. I packed it back up, and the lady grabbed it and ran it through a different scanner. Meanwhile she kept yelling at me in Chinese. What she said, I suppose I’ll never know for sure. But, after that scanner everything seemed to be fine… I don’t know if she just let me go, or if it was the scanner that was messed up. Then I had some problems with my carry-on bag… let’s just say, not a fun security check. I just thought it was interesting how the Chinese are strict in some aspects of security, and lenient in others. They stop and check almost everyone at different parts of security, but then just let them go. Is it good or bad that they are lenient?

The Old City Wall and the Big Wild Goose Pagoda were beautiful. Some people rented bicycles on the Wall, it looked like fun! Natalie got really sick on the Old City Wall today, and Mr. Schagrin and Mr. Ewen had to take her to the hotel. L (Apparently they had an interesting time trying to get a taxi?) Natalie missed the Pagoda, lunch, and a jade shop, ~she really wanted to see the Pagoda~… hopefully she will feel better tomorrow.

We also went to see the Tang Dynasty dancing show late tonight. It was really pretty and was a beautiful show… but… it was so late, we did so much today and we were so tired, many of us found our eyes drifting shut no matter how hard we tried to keep them open. I feel really bad… I mean it’s not like I fell asleep or anything… but I was very tired… and it was so dark and peaceful in there… I did love seeing that show, but I think I missed a little bit of it. L

But, yeah, overall I had a good day and had a lot of fun!