Hey guys,
I thought I’d share some pictures and stories from our China trip (I’ll try to keep it short so don’t worry).
Beijing
We started in Beijing and lucked out with awesome smog-free weather (which apparently is really rare there). In Beijing there were a bunch of different opportunities to see the culture there, as it’s the old imperial capital city and has a lot of historical sites in the center.
We got a tour of the ancient residential part of the city called the “Hutong”
Then made our way to the Forbidden City, which was the enormous complex for the Emperor and his court (no peasants were allowed inside the walls). It’s basically a city within a city:
You can’t escape ND–we saw this lady who didn’t speak any English, but apparently bought the ND hat at the Detroit airport.
At the South entrance to the Forbidden City is Tiananmen Square (named after the Tiananmen Gate––with Mao on it)
We went to take a group picture, but ended up getting photobombed by a Chinese tourist who seemed pretty stoked to get a group picture with a bunch of “laowai” (foreigners).
We did a bike tour through the Hutongs and the sights of Beijing at night too:
But Beijing isn’t all old stuff. Here’s the office building for SOHO, one of the big corporations we visited during our time.
And security cameras are practically everywhere in the capital city
Here’s the Temple of Heaven in another part of the historical city center
Then we went to the Great Wall, which was just about an hour and a half outside of the city:
And I still don’t know what the bottom sign is trying to say…
And we stopped by the Olympic village on the way back from the hotel (my personal favorite photo from the trip)
/ / Shanghai
We took a 5 hour high speed train from Beijing to Shanghai and the differences were pretty noticeable as soon as we got in. Shanghai is like Manhattan meets Las Vegas–super vertically built and condensed, while Beijing is more like Washington DC meets Houston–super expansive and not very built up.
The first night went to the top of the Pearl Tower and got crazy cool views of Pudong’s skyscrapers (the tall one is actually the second tallest on Earth)
Here a Shanghainese chef makes some noodles by hand
After our game watch at 7:30 AM with the ND club of Shanghai, we went to explore the nearby water village, Zhujiajiao.
Then we had our final farewell lunch on top of a restaurant in the Bund (the riverfront formerly owned by the Western powers) with cool views of the skyline and the ships going up and down the Yangtze.
Thanks Notre Dame
Zaijian China!
-Sean Hamilton