Days 4-6: From Beijing to Shanghai

On our last full day in Beijing, we got to climb the Great Wall of China.  They piled us into a tour bus and it took about an hour to get there.  We had the option to take a cable car, walk downhill 40 minutes, and then slide down on a toboggan, and this is what we chose.  (The other option involved going up on a ski lift, which wasn't great for my fear of heights; also, we we're allowed to walk around as much with this option.)  I really enjoyed the view on this option, but WOW was it a physical challenge for me!!  I was sweating and panting most of the way.  But at least I can say that I did it!!

Afterwards we were treated to yet ANOTHER dim sum buffet for lunch, and in the evening we were pretty much left to our own devices.  Mark Mahoney, one of the other Fulbrighters, invited us to get pizza at a place called The Cro's Nest (yes, that's how it is spelled) with him.  We ordered a large pizza to split, and it was HUGE--about 3x the size of pizza in the US.

The next day, we went to Beijing.  We took a car to the train station.  Getting our luggage on the train was a bit of a challenge--we had to pay a gentleman 150 RMB (about $25) to procure his assistance, but I suppose this was fair because we had 10 bags.  The train ride was pretty uneventful: I dozed off and on during it.  It was interesting to see some of the countryside.  The train made three stops before Shanghai--including one 20-minute one for seemingly no apparent reason.  But we finally made it, got into another car with Carol (our weiban), and drove to the apartment.  The Assistant Dean of the School of English Studies, Wang Xin, greeted us.  The apartment is very sparse, as expected.  The air conditioner works great, and the Internet works okay, as do the burners on the stove, but there is no oven and no dryer.  Our biggest issue as of this writing is that the hot water is almost non-existent.

Here is the view from our apartment window:

Wang Xin drove us to get some groceries: there's a place called Century Mart a short drive from us, along with a KFC and a Domino's (it's kind of a mini-mall there).  After she dropped us off, we located some household goods, but we were at a loss to find groceries.  Just when Kerry and I were in full panic mode, we saw Wang Xin again: she returned to help us shop, and then even got us into a taxi (which she paid for), and we got back to the apartment safely!  :)

Yesterday (Sunday), we did a grocery shopping excursion on our own: walked back to Century Mart, bought a lot of household items, and then took a cab home (Carol had written out the address of our place in Chinese, so I could show it to the cab driver--thank goodness!).  At home, we prepared our first dinner in the apartment: a stew with chicken breasts, spices, tomatoes, and lots of Chinese greens (which are SUPER cheap here--about 2 RMB (about 30 cents for a huge bag).  We also did most of our unpacking and then collapsed around 10 pm.