Raindrops are falling on my head

Sunday we had a walking tour of campus in the morning, but it was pouring down rain the whole time and freezing cold compared to Saturday's 80˚. We walked all around campus with Claudia explaining different places and parts of history to us, and finished by taking a break in a vacant classroom and having a discussion with Claudia and Rachel about cultural and political differences, as well as anything else anyone brought up. It was very interesting to hear the viewpoint of an actual citizen of China, and compare her views of America with our views of China. We discussed topics like university in both countries, politics, the view of Chinese students of Americans, the economy, how events like the Russian power switch and the chairman's visit to Japan will affect the political situations in China, and many others. It was really interesting to hear citizens' opinions of these things, since the media always portrays China as a very tightly controlled country where no one's allowed to speak their mind, but we asked Claudia about it, and she said "Well, I just DID say a lot of negative things about the government, so...."

After lunch it was still raining, so we couldn't go to the Wall. Instead, Rachel, Vivian, and Connie took most of the group shopping at a smaller, ethnic market, but Alex and I'd had enough of the haggling for a few days, and Alex B had had to miss the trip the day before, so the three of us went back to Tiananmen and the Forbidden City. It was chilly and grey, so there was nowhere near as many people as Saturday; in fact, it was downright empty, so we other than the occasional groups of businessmen, once we figured out where and how to order tickets (a feat which took about half an hour to accomplish without any Chinese-speaking people with us), we basically had a personal tour of the city as Alex and I pulled what we could remember from the day before. Alex B's camera was pickpocketed unfortunately, so we got a taste of the bad part of Beijing, but other than that it was an excellent trip and we felt pretty satisfied getting ourselves around Beijing with no one to help us. After dinner I was still so cold and damp that I curled up in sweats and watched a movie on my computer til I fell asleep. :)