Olympic Green

"Bird's Nest" at Night

Thankfully Beijing might have one of the most foreigner friendly subway systems in the world. Everything is in English and there is even a voice that comes on when a transfer station is approaching that gives you a list of reasons you might want to change trains (like "Change to Line 10 for Olympic Stadiums"). This makes it pretty easy to get up to the Olympic Green in Beijing.

Beijing by Train

High Speed Train from Shenyang to Beijing

So...this time around I was not nearly as successful as the trip to Dandong. I had a feeling that the Chinese train system was maybe not so reliable, but I got a little more first-hand experience on Friday.

Flickr Set (haven't gotten all the titles and descriptions up yet, but it's there if you want to look)

Beijing!

Heading out to Beijing in the morning, quick rundown of the plan:

1. Hop on the slow train from Liaoyang to Shenyang
2. Ride the bullet train from Shenyang to Beijing
3. Wander - Forbidden City/Tianamen Square
4. Find a hotel?
5. Wander part 2 - Olympic Stadiums?
6. Come back the way I came

To add a little bit of fun to the confusion (or should it be confusion to the fun?), no one can speak English here! Haha...never was much of a planner. Since Beijing is relatively close I'm not going to try to pack everything into one trip. The main goal of this weekend is to see Tiananmen Square, including the Forbidden City, and the Olympic Stadiums, Birds Nest (Wikipedia) and the Water Cube (Wikipedia). After that my plan becomes significantly more freeform, if that is possible. Anyway wish me luck, I hope to take some good pictures and maybe even come back with a story or two.

Chinese Ingenuity

Some days I see some things around this country I just have to share. Here are two from my trip to Dandong.

Grenade Helicopter

We saw some guys hawking these helicopters made from wartime surplus aka GRENADES! Notice they also build all kinds of stuff from various size casings. Next to the helicopter looks like an artillery gun made from .50 cal and maybe a bomber behind that.

This one is even better. If you think it's tough for the Chinese to copy a purse, these guys are building a a copy of the fiberglass boat on the right. Did you catch that? They are building a second boat, in the water, using a grinder. These guys can and will do anything with a grinder. (Full Size)

Bonus: Baijiu Review

Like I said, I'm not the only one that thinks Baijiu is terrible. Robert on the other hand is a machine, it looks like he might actually enjoy it.

Dandong Part IV: Yalu River Bridge

End of the Old Yalu River Bridge Looking Toward N. Korea

...Or how we kinda sorta crossed into North Korea (according to Google).

Dandong Part III: Museum of American Aggression and Aid to Korea

Entrance to "The Museum of American Aggression and Aid to Korea"

I think it's interesting that as students in the United States, we don't really learn that much about the Korean War. It seems like a lot of focus is put on the World Wars, but we don't really see or hear that much about the wars the US has been involved in since then. Or maybe I did learn about it in school but pop culture is so much more focused on WWII I just forgot I knew something about it. Think about how many movies and TV shows were spawned from WWII. How about the Korean War? I know the only one I can think of is MASH (both the series and the movie). It may have to do with my age, but I have to wonder if it has to do with the sketchy, open to interpretation type outcomes of the conflicts/police actions in Korea and Vietnam as opposed to the very clear WOOO USA USA USA!!! outcome of WWII.