By Hunter Puckett (& Holden White)

Today was a day of firsts. We were shocked once we first got to Beijing to see how many people were in such a small place. We could tell this from how the apartments were situated, with a ton of tall apartment buildings all over Beijing.

We were lucky not to have a lot of smog on our first day, and the weather was good overall. During our first meal we were introduced to some different dishes, such as rabbit head, chicken claw, and cow lung and stomach, (夫妻肺片). While we were not quite used to them; they were still good. The way the food was served was also very different. Here the dishes are all ordered together, so that everybody could share from every dish. This family style was different then the one person one dish we are used to.

We also got to see Shaohan’s wonderful community and meet a couple of his friends. Shaohan, Holden and me got to play basketball with them. Not going to lie, we got beat pretty bad.

After this, we got to go to the Olympic park where we saw the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube which was really cool to see. In the same park we saw dancing as a way of exercise along with a man writing calligraphy with water on the ground. The characters disappeared minutes after his writing them.

It has been a full day, can’t wait to get to sleep – the first good rest of the trip!