Sunday 28th Feb 2016

Today was our first day in Beijing. We were all really excited. I still can't believe I'm actually in China. Here's a brief summary of what we did today-

We got up at 8 in the morning and went down to get breakfast. Jennifer and I had some toast, fried eggs, and these 'steam points', which are like spongy dumplings…I liked them…   At 10:30, we took the bus to Tiananmen Square, a popular shopping place… We looked around the square, and visited a tea shop, where we tried some tea…     After that, we visited a Chinese art gallery and bought stuff from the shop.

We had a packed lunch outside the Forbidden City.    We then visited the Forbidden City, built in the 1400s to house the emperor, and make sure no common citizen saw him. According to legend, it has 9999 rooms. If a newborn baby were to sleep in a different room every night, it'd be 27 years old when it runs out of rooms.

To get a good view of the city, we went to Jingshan Park. We encountered the Beijing Opera, a group of friendly people performing classic Chinese songs. They sang a song especially for us as a welcome. We had to climb loads of steps.  We took the subway back to the hotel. We were given 30 mins of free time before we left again for dinner. We ate at a hot-pot restaurant; the food was really good. As we ate, there were a few solo performers entertaining us: a man in an intricate blue 'dress', a ribbon dancer,

And a noodle person.

To conclude, I enjoyed today. We're all a little nervous about going to school tomorrow…

Here are some photos from our first day…

Isha S (9M)