Peking University and The Dandelion School

Happy 4th of July! This is probably the holiday that I find myself most often out of the country. If I get to travel to interesting places, I guess I don't mind missing the fireworks. OK, blog update:

We arrived in Beijing to an orderly, quiet, and uncrowded airport. It was maybe my most pleasant immigration and customs experience. I didn't sleep on the plane, but the trip was not that bad. I thought of it like a marathon--if you wrap your head around the distance or time, it's manageable. 

Our hotel is sort of gross to be honest. It's really not clean--that's the big thing. It feels like 15 years ago the place was probably really nice, but things have gone down hill. The good news is that we won't be spending much time in here anyway.

The better news is that there's a beer garden right outside the hotel. It's literally in the parking lot. My first stop, along with 3 others from my group, was the beer garden. They have these things called "beer towers." It's kind of like ordering a pitcher for the table, but better.

After beers and a little down time we headed out for dinner. Delicious! There is always so much food! Food waste isn't something that is looked down upon in China. In fact, leaving food on the table show that the host made enough and everyone is satisfied. Each dinner has about 10 courses. Everything goes on a lazy Susan, and you just keep spinning and grabbing! Last night my favorite dishes were an eggplant dish and a tofu dish. Tonight there was this spicy eggs and pepers and a really interesting rice soup.

Today we went to Peking University where a professor named Dr. Po talked to us about the education system in China. Peking University is one of the top universities in the country. Right now is "graduation season," so we saw many students walking around in their robes taking photos.

This is a 13-story pagoda at Peking University

Speaking of taking photos, one of my goals for this trip is to get braver at asking people if I can take their photos. I'd like to have a collection of portraits from this trip. Also, I could see making a night photo album...this place comes alive with neon lights at night!

After Peking University and lunch, we headed to the Dandelion School which is a school for migrant workers' children. The problem is that people move from their home villages to work in Beijing, but they are registered in their home town. This means that their children cannot go to school where the parents work. It's really hard for the children of these migrant workers to get an education, so the Dandelion School is one small drop in the ocean of need. The school was great, and we had a lot of fun there, but it was a bit stressful when our guide turned to us and said, "OK, the kids are ready for you. What activities have you prepared?" And we had no idea that we were expected to lead activities!! Fortunately we split the kids up into small groups and just chatted with them. The kids I talked to were very sweet, but we had trouble communicating a lot of the time. 

I am working on my goal of taking portraits! This is one of the students I spoke with today.

The internet is being a little funky, so I'll try to wrap this up!

Some first impressions:

1. Beijing actually does not seem as foreign to me as some European cities I've visited. I think it has to do with how modern it is, and the size of all the roads and construction.
2. It's not necessarily as crowded as I anticipated. However, it's HUGE! (Duh) High rises all over the place on every horizon.
3. It is interesting and freeing/odd to travel in a country where I have absolutely no reference points for the language. It does help to travel with 3 bilingual guides, however. I've learned a bit more Chinese! I'm up to about 8 words/phrases now!

**Please excuse any typos here! It's late and I'm fighting the jet lag!