I cannot believe it has been over two months since I posted! And since Juanjo never seems to post (hint hint, nudge nudge)…the family duty is left to me and my travel stories! 🙂
A few pictures from my trip. First, the Backlakes district in Beijing, on my first (very dreary, gray) day there. Surrounding these 2 long lakes are the “hutong”, which are narrow roads that can’t fit cars and take you back in time as you walk through them.
I walked for the whole morning on my second free day in Beijing, and was amazed by all the people, the long distances, and the metropolitan feeling of the city. That, and of course, the Olympic fever, which runs high here. Here’s Tianenman square–it’s HUGE–the size of 90 football fields, with standing room for 300,000 people (and I think it gets something like a half million on major national holidays–just imagine those crowds!).
Then, up to a rural county in the northeaster province of Jilin, bordering North Korea, to visit rural middle schools. It’s only an hour from a city of 3 million, but the countryside has bumpy terrible roads, and the conditions are extremely bad.
Next, on Wednesday the 30th, we flew to Beijing, switched planes, and flew down to Zhengzhou, a “small” city of 6 million in the southeastern province of Henan. There I visited a school where all went normally in the classroom observation, and then I was quite literally ambushed with requests to sign books and speak English with these rural Chinese middle school students. One said to me “you’re the first foreign person I’ve ever met”. I think it was true for many people here–I’ve gotten A LOT of stares everywhere I’ve gone, especially the rural areas.
Finally, yesterday we had a day off, and went sightseeing for the day. We went to a cave where there were 1500-year old Buddha statues, one over 35 feet tall, and several thousand smaller than 3 centimeters.
Finally, we went and saw Shaolin Temple, the birthplace of Chinese Kung fu and an active Buddhist monestary. Here I am with Jin Lei, my sweet guide and translator for all the provincial travelling this week.
…and the real sightseeing hasn’t even started, as I’ve been working the whole time! Tomorrow is the last day of work, and I meet up with Jenessa and Matt in the afternoon in Beijing. We’ll stay there for 3 days and go see the Forbidden City and Great Wall, and then take an overnight train to Shanghai and stay there for 3 days. Quite a trip–in total I will have spent nearly 3 weeks in China.
