Beijing The Final Act

To my amazement, I am still talking about our trip. Unfortunately, things have been busy since we got back to UB, so I haven't been able to finish this up as quickly as I would have liked. However, this will be the last post about our amazing trip.We were able to be in Beijing during the Chinese New Year. What an incredible experience! We had never seen or heard so many fireworks in all of our lives. The pictures do not do justice to the display. At midnight of the Chinese New Year, the entire sky was lit up, and it sounded like the city was exploding. We love fireworks, but there were so many that we were actually scared.While we were there, we couldn't pass up an opportunity to see the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube. I doubt that there are any other Olympic sporting event locations as iconic as these. The Beijing games were exciting, and it was great to be able to see the places were Olympic history was made. Josh also decided that he could have been the mascot. Check out that pose! The day after Chinese New Year, we visited the Temple of Heaven. It was customary for the emperor to offer a sacrifice to Heaven the first day of every new year. This practice ended over a hundred years ago, but we got to see actors present what that event was like.

After nearly getting crushed at the Temple of Heaven, there were a lot of people there, we went to Tienanmen Square.

Tienanmen Square and the monuments and buildings in and around it were very impressive. It was also a great place to get a sense for China's cultural situation and future.

Our final stop in Beijing was the train station. After a week in China, we boarded an early morning train and headed north-west into Mongolia.

The scenery along the way was fantastic. Just outside of Beijing we began cutting our way through mountains. On the other side of the mountains, the land flattened out and soon became quite desert like. We even got to experience our first dust storm!

Another interesting element of our journey was the changing of the train wheels. The track gauge in China is different than the track gauge in Mongolia. Because of this, the train wheels have to be changed every time a train crosses the boarder. Therefore, the last stop in China was about four hours long. The local crews lifted each car, disconnected the current wheels, and connected the proper size wheels. All of this may have been a bit more interesting if it hadn't been midnight at the time.

When we awake the next morning, we knew that we were back in Mongolia. The landscape had changed from a red dirt to white, everywhere. We saw numerous herds of animals including this herd of camels. If you look closely, you can see their humps. So far, these are the only live camels that we have seen in Mongolia. I say live camels because we have begun eating camel meat on a regular basis. Just another one of those crazy foods to add to the ever growing list. Actually, camel meat is very good.

We had a wonderful time on our trip, but we were happy to get back to Mongolia and the work that we are doing here. The semester has been flying by, but we have had a renewed purpose and sense for why we are here. Our time away was refreshing and renewing. Now we are pushing towards the end of our first year and looking forward to the future.