Beijing and Jia Mu Si

The first day we went to the Great Wall which was not as big as I thought it would be but very long and steep to climb. Then we went a factory where they make beautiful Cloisonne vases by hand. It is a very tedious and minute process. Then we went on a Pedicab tour around the Hutong of Beijing which is where all of the government officials used to live back in the day. Hutong means narrow alley way....and they are very, very narrow. The place is very run down now but it is still a very good place to live because the people actually own the land their apartments are on. For the most part the government owns the land and people can lease the apartments but only for seventy years. So they take out a thirty year mortgage, pay that off, live in it for forty more years and then they no longer own it so they can't even pass it on to their children. Craziness huh. Then we went to an absolutely amazing acrobatic show...it was undescribable.
Yesterday we went to the Tennemen Square, Forbidden City, and to the Summer Palace. They are all traditional government sites...like oiur Washington DC. It was very interesting, lots of walking!! Then we flew out to this much smaller city up North called Jia Mu Si. It is super cold and rainy here, nothing like Beijing! Here we met our English speaking nursing students. They are the sweetest, most generous, thoughtful people ever. I already love my girl so much. Her English name is Vicki and her Chinese name is Wan Ting Ting wich is a proverb for beauty. Amazing huh. She is 18 years old and has been at the University for 2 years already. Her English is amazing. They go to school from 6am to 9 pm every day. Insane huh. So we toured their school which is small but has very good credentials. They have classes and labs for Dental Hygiene, Dental Techs (they make crowns and stuff), and Nursing. Then we went and toured the dental hospital which was actually pretty impressive. They had decent equipment at least and seemed very clean.
They feed us a TON of food and most of it is actually pretty good. It seems like we are always eating and riding on the bus! I love it here...I really want Vicki to come visit me in America!!