*Apologies to any Maggie's-blog-followers...I was out of town this week. So, even though Maggie has been awesome at writing blog posts...I haven't been able to post them. So buckle up...I've got like a million posts for you!! Woohoo!*
This morning we woke up early to get to choir practice at 8 am. There are 7 people singing for the program on Saturday night and we met in the lobby of the hotel Nancy and I are currently staying at, Wanliu. We had to take a bus to get from the hotel to the metro and then take the metro a few stops to the piano store where we were able to find a practice room with a piano. So we got on and off the bus without too much trouble, got on the metro ok, and then, when it was time to get out of the metro station we went out the wrong exit and ended up in the completely wrong area and had to call our HCF representative to help us figure out where we were. This should probably have been a sign for how the rest of the day was going to turn out. The practice room was at this studio where they were teaching a ton of other little piano lessons and it was fun to hear the Chinese kids doing the same hanon exercises and playing the same songs that I played. Except they’re all like five years old and playing things I couldn’t play until I was twelve. Alas. Anyway, we started practicing (which I guess went ok, I had to resist a very strong urge to kick a few people a few times) and kept going until about 12 when we down to McDonalds for lunch. It was a very welcome sight and I sort of think that now that I’ve been there I may not want to go back to regular Chinese food…ever.
We finished our rehearsal around 2 pm and then Nancy and I decided to make the most of our afternoon and explore Beijing. We had sort of a faulty plan, but we headed towards a district that Anna, the HCF office manager, recommended and then walked along a road towards the Beihai Park. Along the way we came across some good shops and found a few things. I got a pretty Chinese vase (I bargained in Chinese! It only took my knowing the numbers, which I do, but I was still proud) and some really cute shoes. We kept walking looking for a post office (Nancy wanted to find commemorative stamps for her dad, don’t even get me started on this one) and ended up in some remote hutong (kind of like an alley…) and then eventually found the post office and they did not even have what she was looking for. Ahhh it was really frustrating. Oh well, we proceeded to the Beihai Park which I insisted we go in which was AWESOME. This was definitely the highlight of the day. It was gorgeous and there were some really cool buildings and pavilions and bridges and ponds with lily pads and all those kinds of things. Probably my favorite were the Five Dragon Pavilions on the lake that had Chinese music playing and older couples ballroom dancing. It was the cutest thing ever.
After Beihai we wanted to check out the Forbidden City, even if we could only walk around it, and it looked pretty close on the map, so we started out walking. We were so wrong. We ended up making it to the entrance of the city and we wanted to walk all the way down to the square, but it was so far and hot (and Nancy has obviously not been on a sightseeing trip with my mom because I literally think Rachel in Spain was 5 and did a better job walking than she did) so we ended up not having time and just took a taxi to the closest metro station which ended up being a pain too because we were on the opposite side of the intersection from the station and it was pretty much impossible to get over to it. So frustrating! So finally we got on the metro and I got off to go back to the practice room and practice with another girl, Wendy, for some songs we’re doing on Saturday night. This is when things started to get bad. We finished around 8:30 and went out to take the subway back to Wanliu. (Oh and by this point it was pouring rain.) We got on the subway and went to the stop that Wanliu is at. We tried to get a taxi to go the rest of the way, but couldn’t find one so we got on a bus (after being told that they all go by Wanliu and diverge from there). So we got on the bus and a few stops later Wendy, who speaks Chinese fluently thank goodness, asked the ticket lady if we were going there and it turns out we were on the wrong bus. So we get off the bus and end up outside the metro station that we started at (the one by the practice room.) We then proceed to spend 45 minutes trying to hail a cab, I am not kidding, it really was 45 minutes, and finally we get one and he manages to take us somewhere close to the hotel and I really want to be done with this story because it just pains me to write it. So eventually I fell into bed after having a yogurt for dinner (they actually have good yogurt here) and having everyone laugh at me in the little market I bought it at because I didn’t speak Chinese. Oh and this morning our shower overflowed and our bathroom sort of flooded. The end.
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