Drowning In a Sea of Similar Faces:  
Triangulating China

"You can prepare as much clothes, toiletries, and other "necessities" as possible but nothing will be as useful as preparing an open mind, adaptability, patience and respect." ~Mike Amos

Journal entry 2
March 18, 2007
6:55am China time

Yesterday felt like a really long day. I thought 2 days had already passed. We arrived at the airport around 5am March 17 China. It was still the 16^th in California so we kind of lost a day. We didn’t get to our hotel till around 8am. After we had checked in and ate at the hotel buffet style breakfast lounge, we had 3 hours free to ourselves till our first scheduled tour. I went to exchange some currency and situated myself in my room. I share the room with a guy named Garrett. He’s a cool guy. His girlfriend is also on this trip.

The view outside of our window

     After we were set loose, everyone went on his or her own separate ways. Later I found out that most of them went to sleep. I, on the other hand, went to do some exploring. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know where I was going or what I was doing but I just had the urge to do some walking.

     I walked about two to three blocks and found myself wandering around Tiananmen Square. Turns out that this is one of the stops we were going to make for the first tour on this trip. I didn’t know it was so close to our hotel. I ended up walking twice as much as I should’ve that day. Along with touring Tiananmen Square, we went through the Forbidden City as well. That was a lot of walking that day. Again I can’t stress how long that day felt. Well it’s about 7am. Time to eat breakfast. We leave our hotel at 8 to the Great Wall today so I better get moving. I’m so exited!

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You can click on any of the photos to see an enlarged version. All of the photos shown anywhere on this site were taken by me unless said differently.

Our room

The roomie

Kite seller at Tiananmen Square

A little Chinese pride. That's the entrance to the Forbidden City in the background.