The Weekend Excitement.

Last night was a very long evening out on the town in Beijing. Everyone got back from seeing the acrobats at about 9:30pm, which was amazing apparently. Oh well, lesson learned. So, a huge group of us headed out to the front of the school to catch cabs out to a bar called NanJie, which we had been told was a very good local bar. Unfortunately, the cabbie didn't know exactly where the bar was so he dropped us off on a side of the Worker’s Stadium, which is a really huge soccer stadium. So after about thirty phone calls and literally an hour and a half of wondering around, we finally arrived at the bar. It turns out, it’s a bar full of everyone but Chinese people. There were loads and loads of European people, who really enjoyed getting in fights. Right before we left, I helped break up a fight between these drunken Eastern European guys who were about the size of my leg. Also there were a good amount of Americans at the bar. Our group talked to a group of three American guys who were teaching in China and all had plans to go back to the states to study more. I had some pretty interesting shots, one of which was called a Taiwanese Duck Fart. It was pretty good, not the best sounding name though. As it turns out, we didn't get back to the dorm until about 4:00 AM. The best part though, is that my 21^st century Beijing class had a 9:50 AM field trip the next morning to a museum.

Feeling quite wonderful (and by wonderful I mean horrible) I woke around 8:00 AM and wondered down to the bus. The bus ride was about 30 minutes, and we ended up at a museum right by Tiananmen. The theme of the museum was the modernization of Beijing. The museum had a huge floor model of the entire city of Beijing. It was incredible. I felt like Godzilla. The model included all of the new Olympic buildings, which all look incredible. I’d really love to come back in 2008 to see some of the Olympic Games; the city will be incredibly beautiful by then.

As everyone was starving, after the museum, we decided to head to a near by McDonalds. Oh sweet American food!!!! We all had a hamburger and some fries and they were everything that I dreamed they could be. Since we were by Tiananmen again, we all decided that we would go into the Forbidden City. It was a great decision. That place was amazing. We had to pay a 60 Yuan entrance Fee, but it was well worth it. The Forbidden City was a palace for the rulers of China throughout the ages, and is the definition of excess. The place is the size of some towns. Our group walked straight through the compound to the backside. We did very little stopping, and it ended up taking about three hours to go all the way through. It would take days to explore the entire palace! I took plenty of good pictures, but my camera ran out of batteries, so I didn't get everything that I wanted. But Muh’s camera was still working, so hopefully I’ll get some pictures from him. As we were heading back to the front of the Forbidden City to catch the subway back to the dorm, Dan and I noticed a very tall American walking through the City. It was freakin Sebastian Bach (lead singer of Skid Row, an very popular 80s band), you probably know him by sight if you don't recognize the name. It was so surreal. He is playing a show this Sunday in Beijing and was out to see the sights. Dan and I seized the opportunity to get our picture with him. Check out my picture site, there will be a lot of new ones up soon! It really made my week. That’s all the excitement of my weekend thus far. Hopefully the rest of the weekend will involve plenty of sleep!