Day 8 – So today was our free day. We met one of the students, Ruby who helped us to get to the Pearl Market. We took the subway and had to transfer 3 times. It is only 2 rmb to get on the subway and you can transfer as many times as you want. It was about 40 minutes. Once we got there it was 4 or 5 stories. It was huge. We got some headphones for 65 rmb which is a really good deal. They might be a fake but they work really well at blocking out all other sound other than the music. After headphones we went to look at watches. I was debating getting a really obnoxious looking watch just to have but I decided against it. Another student was determined to get a watch and he finally did. It was a really nice Chinese brand watch. Other students in our group got a guitar, silk scarves, jewelry, purses for gifts, shoes and other various trinkets.
After we went to the Pearl Market we went to the Temple of Heaven. We went there because it was only like a block away and it is a big tourist attraction. I believe it was just for prayer. We saw a tree that was 550 years old and the bark represented 9 dragons. Dragons are really important in Chinese culture. After the temple of heaven we needed to get back to the hotel so we could meet another student Vivian to take us to the water park. Originally, the tickets were 200 dollars but Vivian got us a discounted price of 65. Vivian had us hooked up and had preordered taxis which took us straight there. I want her to be my travel agent. Once we were there we went inside and got our lockers and got ready to go swimming. We each had to pay 40 to put on the wristband for food if we wanted it but if not we would just get the money back.
At the waterpark the women’s swimsuits had more clothing than the Americans and the men’s had way less than the typical American swimsuit. Also, the people in China are very open with changing and showering in the locker room. There were no curtains on the showers and people were walking around without any clothing on. It was a bit of a shock. Anyways, back to the water park. Some of the slides were closed so that was disappointing but there was a 4 person raft slide, single rider speed slide, 2 person funnel slide that ended up in the lazy river, some small slides, a wave pool and a slide that you go into a chamber and the floor drops from beneath you. Some people got stuck in this and they had to get them out with the trap doors they have on the sides. I rode every slide I am pretty sure. My favorite was the one with the funnel that dropped into the lazy river. One thing I noticed was that most of the people were scared or reluctant to go down the slides. Seeing as the Water Cube was China’s largest water park (which was very small compared to American water parks), I guess the people just haven’t been exposed to entertainment like this.
When we walked out of the water cube there was a whole line of illegal taxis waiting to take people home. Vivian took care of us and flagged down real taxis and we all got back safely. As we were waiting for taxis we were standing by a 7 star hotel. We really wanted to go look and see what it was like, but we had no business being in there.
So, when we got back we had McDonalds delivered. We tried ordering online but that wasn’t going well seeing as we couldn’t read Chinese. We found an English page but the option to select our district was in Chinese and we didn’t have a phone number to put in. We had Vanessa order it for us, apparently there was an English option to order but she used her Chinese. I got a double cheeseburger, cold fries, and a coke. Then I went to sleep.
fawcettplus3china2012 