I'm a little behind on the blog updates, but I have a little time now to catch up with everything we've been up to here. I'm in the Beijing Airport with my GYLC friends waiting for our flight to Hangzhou. Yesterday was by far the best day! We went to visit the Great Wall of China! The morning was alright, but a little bit slow because we had LGM meetings and speakers until noon. I listened to a speaker called Michael Su (we were all randomly assigned a speaker to go to and broke up into 4 groups). Mr. Su lives in Georgia (the state in the U.S, not the country), and helps U.S. businesses go global. When describing himself he said, "I call myself a bridge or facilitator between two different cultures." He explained that to really be able to do international business, you have to understand the culture that you are dealing with. I learned that it's not enough to be bilingual anymore, you have to be bicultural as well. Noted ;)
Anyway, now for the Great Wall...We finally got to see a little bit of the countryside on the drive out. The unfortunate thing was that even though we were in the country, the horrible Beijing smog was there. Hopefully, China will follow through with it's pledge to lower the pollution because it's a really big issue right now.
The Great Wall was absolutely beautiful, and we climbed as far as possible. We were so sweaty and tired, but it was such a fun thing to do with friends. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...
(Creepin')
(So beautiful! Oh and Kirk is the guy in the striped shirt - he's really cool)
(Lucretzia is in the front, Mariana is in the back)
(Me and my roommate Muriel)
(Me and Azahn from Australia)
(Smog...)
(Me and Jay)
(Me, Miguel, and Victoria)
(Illegal vendors on the Great Wall)
(Me and Katty from South Africa)
(Intrepid)
(Me and Jay with our very own pieces of the Great Wall)
(Miguel being brave on the edge)
(Me and Ayesha)
(Failed jumping photo...)
(Me, Ayesha, and Azahn)
(Etching on the Great Wall)
We had dinner at a pizza buffet, which was horrible. The Peking Duck dinner was 374847574839496030284838 times better. After dinner, we spent an hour in this part of Beijing called English corner where we spoke with Chinese people who wanted to practice their English. Everyone was so friendly and eager, so we all had a great time. I even met someone who is moving to Pennsylvania to go to UPenn for his grad degree. Go figure. We had another LGM before went back to our rooms to pack for today's flight. I'm sitting with Miguel, Mariana, Lucretzia, Ayesha, Jay, Victoria, Azahn, Katie, and Katty in the airport right now. I can't wait for Hangzhou!!!!
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