There's Magic in the Air... Wait, No. That's Smog.

Well HERRO there. This is a blog update written by Steph, or Jesus/The Pope/Chairman Mao as known by the Chinese people at the Great Wall today.

So, touching down in Beijing (over a week ago now - WHAT?!?!) the biggest immediate differences were the weather (ick) and the smell. Beijing smells industrial. It's not particularly bad, but because you know the smell is coming from the grey haze it is quite off-putting. The smog wasn't too bad when we first arrived but it has gotten steadily worse, to the point where I can barely see 200m down the highway, my throat feels like I'm getting over a cold and when I scratched my face today, instead of getting white makeup under my fingernails, it was dark grey. Not nice.

But Beijing is brilliant! The other students here are great and very, very easy to talk to. I'm the youngest IN THE ENTIRE GROUP. Crazy. What else is crazy? AWESOME TEA/FRUIT JUICE BLENDS YAY. And the schoolwork is not challenging (except for grammar, we "natives" never learn that stuff apparently and now I'm regretting it). However, the work is wordy, boring and subjective so I'm fairly certain assignments will become a bitch.

Yesterday was the first time I felt like I was in China, and not just extended-Springvale. After re-applying for our visas, Liana, Jasper, Jennifer and I (OH LOOK NEW PEOPLE I MADE NEW FRIENDS HAHAHA YAY) went to the Lama Temple. And I looked around at how absolutely different and beautiful it was. "Oh yeah, not big Springvale. China. Sweeeeeet." After burning incense and making three wishes (and three bows!) at the Temple, we hit my favourite local eatery which has no English words, no pictures and no staff with even the most basic grasp of my language. So, not only is the food GREAT, but it also helps me with my main China-goal - learning Mandarin. My Mandarin has noticeably improved and I am in the lowest "advanced Mandarin" class. Basically I have 'ni hao' and 'xie xie' down pat, so now I'm learning useful sentences etc. Exactly the lessons I want.

Friday night, after the temple, I went with the rest of our TTC group to KTV!!!!! (Karaoke). The private room had a STRIPPER POLE and a GLASS CATWALK. Also, when we all got on the catwalk at the end to dance until they kicked us out, a bunch of pervy Chinese guys decided to start filming the girls on the end. I didn't really see the point in that. But I am looking forward to the footage being leaked onto the internet.

TODAY TODAY TODAY. Was a tour day. Bright and early we hit some traditional village in Beijing that was built up around a lake. I forget what it was called. No wait, I never learnt what it was called because I slept on the trip there. My bad. Anyway, Liana and I were bus-buddies (4EVA!!!!1!!!one) and paired up for a rickshaw ride. Rickshaws are those little two-seater carriages pulled by people on bikes. Our rickshaw man was AWESOME. And afterwards we got lost which was tiring and annoying and I really needed a coffee or something.

Lunch was at an enamel... factory? Warehouse? Idk. But some people now have presents. Certainly the highlight of our day was THE GREAT WALL. And isn't it great? Not in monsoon weather, no. Nevertheless, myself and a group of Swedes and Brits ROCKED that wall. Running up, having group shots with random sleeping people and generally being sweaty and loud and obnoxious and whatnot. Photos must be retrieved. I'll get on that. But the greatest part was photobombing other people's holiday snaps. Many a random Chinese person is going to look on their Great Wall experience thinking, "Who the crap is that white girl giving the peace sign over my wife's shoulder?" Or something, I don't know their lives.

Still, our TTC group met at a point at the wall that would be showing traditional Chinese movies in celebration for the 90th anniversary for the CCP. As we positioned ourselves on little picnic rugs, a giant group of locals gathered close. And then started taking photos and videos. At our love for hamming it up for the camera, they moved closer. Then started taking photos in front of us. Finally, myself (being the palest in the group by far) and a pretty, light-haired Danish (?) girl were targeted for prime photo-taking. We were given children (SO MANY CHILDREN), random young women, random men of all ages and even a baby (not for me though, thank GOD) to put our arms around and smile with. I had so many children sitting on my lap that I felt like Santa Claus. IT WAS AWESOME. And now I'm wondering how many people went home and changed their Chinese Facebook DP to "Me and some random white girl on the Great Wall."

The movie was really bad. So bad it stopped being funny. It was a musical. Chinese people really aren't known for singing.