July 9: Coca Cola Sneak Preview

Today we had a full schedule. There was breakfast in the morning, then a dance class that showcased traditional Chinese dance. In this type of dance we have round pieces of fabric in our hands, that we twist and turn throughout the dance. After dance class we had our regular classes, lunch and then a great trip to Coca-Cola's offices. At the meeting we met alot of the interns that were currently working with the Olympics since Coca-Cola is a big sponsor of the games. We were able to see the new and upcomming commercials that were made for the games. So we can't wait to come home and see them on the TV. The interns were very cool and told us alot about the colleges that they went to (Middleburry and Penn State) and being a college student in Beijing. This was deffinitly the best meeting that we have had so far. They really knew how to talk to a group of teenagers instead of a focus group, and then once we got home we did our homework/studying and some went outside to play Basketball/ Soccer.

July 7th: Duck and Acrobats

After class today, we had a brief meeting with a Kodak representative who talked about their sponsorship with the Beijing Olypmics. After that we went with Ted as well as the Kodak Representative and got to see the inside of the Olympic venue (which was a very prestigous and wonderful experience for us as only a selected few and people with permission were able to actually go inside and check out the Bird's Nest and all the other buildings and towers built by people outside of Beijing who have been working on the venue for 3 years nonstop. We even got to talk to some of the workers and took pictures with them. They said that they've been working for 3 years on the venue for the Olympic and they're from all over China who've come from the rural parts just to work on it.

 

After visiting the Olympic venue we went out for dinner and enjoyed it at a very nice restaurant where we got to experience our first Peking duck! Everyone loved and enjoyed it.

 

After dinner we got to see an ACROBATIC SHOW! It was just amazing! We've never seen so many painful positions that come out so graceful as the ones that we've seen today. In one of the acts they had as much as 12 people on one single bike that a single person peddled from underneath all those people. We saw another act where a woman supported 4 people on a stick that was placed on her chin, it was just astounding! We were also fortunate enough to see plate spinners and a huge wheel where two males were spinning around in what seemed like a hamster cage that were suspended in the air, connected together and spun. Can't wait to see what's more in store for us.

July 6th

Sunday! We have finally started to get used to the schedule here that it was sort of wierd that we had a free day today. We all slept in till about 10:30 and then after a brief lunch, we all headed out to a small bakery across the street from our dorm and basically bought up the entire store as everything was under a dollar and everything looked so good that we all thought that it was fake!

 

Today we were finally able to get some internet connection as Mike and Ted were nice enough to give us laptops that we set up with internet connections. We all scrambled behind each other to get just a couple of minutes on the laptops so that we could get in contact with the outside world and see what was going on with our families and tell them about our adventures here. 

 

After lunch, we went to a street with a lot of stores and we stayed there till about 5 o'clock., we headed back, had dinner, relaxed, went on the computer and went to bed.

July 5th - Palace of Discovery

Another interesting and fun-filled day in Beijing. What was different though was that we didn't have classes today. No weekend classes! We all ate breakfast at our regular time, which was around 7:00 and then went back to our dorms and prepared to go to the Summer Palace. We took a rented bus and arrived at the Summer Palace after 40 minutes. We saw amazing buildings and walked around a little bit with our tour guide, who was really nice and spoke very good English. The gates of the Summer Palace were just amazing and just the culture and the people amazed us. We walked down a corridor that held 4,000 paintings and climbed all the way to the top of the Palace where the Emperor stayed at. Of course we had fun along the way and bonded more over the experience. What was great and truly amazing about today was the fact that we got to take a boat back into the city on the same route that the Emperor took when his family and himself headed back from the Summer Palace. On the boat ride back, we were able to interact with some people on the boat, practice what little Mandarin we learned and waved to people from the boat. All in all, another wonderful day that we fully enjoyed!

Happy July 4th in China!

Since today was the 4th of July, we were able to celebrate it in the afternoon. After a morning of fun/interesting Chinese classes with Wang laoshi and Pan laoshi, we had our usual lunch and got on another rented bus and headed out to celebrate the 4th of July at the International School of Beijing. It was like being back home again, well sort of. Everything was pretty fancy (well a school worth $22,000 dollars a year gives you some perks) and there were food stands from different companies like McDonald's and Papa John's. They even hired a band to play and just so many things to do and eat. Unfortunately due to the rain, the fireworks were cancelled. However, we still had a fun time nonetheless and enjoyed each other's company. It was one of our more relaxed days since we've been here and I feel that we're going to get very few of these chill days so we enjoyed today as much as we could. Everyone's having a great time and we are each figuring out each other's personalities and establishing new relationships with each other. We can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring for us! 

- Liann

Corporate Connections

The students were treated to lunch by Greg Gilligan, the Head of Government Relations for McDonald's in China. This briefing was fascinating and delicious. It focused on how McDonald's is marketing and expanding their image and store chain in China. Mr. Gilligan has lived in China for almost 12 years. He gave students a lot of great advice about pursuing careers in China and honing their language skills. He also had McDonald's food delivered to our school for our meeting. 

The Great Wall of China

The climb up the wall took about an hour and included hundreds of steps. Our group had quite a work out. "The Chinese say that you are not a true man or woman until you have climbed the Great Wall." Our Chinese scholars all successfully completed this rite of passage. 

The weather was perfect for our trip to the Great Wall. We took a two hour bus ride from Beijing before arriving at the Wall. The part of the Wall we visited was more natural and less commercialized than some 

other parts of the Wall. We had to be careful climbing because each step is at varying heights because the wall is built on the precipice. The view from the mountain top was extraordinary!