Day 12 in Beijing

Today is another misty day. Thursday the 26th November is my twelveth day in Beijing, China. The weather today is very much like yesterday, misty, dark, dull, foggy. It's not too much colder but the sky definitely looks more plain and lack of excitement. I researched about Beijing winter, apparently there's quite a bit of rain during the winter time. Personally I don't favour rain, I think rain increases the distances between people because people would prefer to stay indoor rather than meeting ups etc; rain increases stress, especially for transporting across the city etc. I hope it won't rain today. Today my manager and one of my colleague left to Shanghai for a day-training. I stayed at the office to be responsible and taking care of the projects we have on hand.

Today the most important thing on my to-do list is to buy the train tickets to Shanghai. Yesterday a guy called Arturs called me from Skype and told me that he's an AIESECer from the US, ethnically Latvian, who's currently doing an ET with AIESEC BJTU in a kindergarten 1 hour outside of Beijing. He got my contact details from the email I replied to the Shanghai intern tour and wish to travel with us to SH. There's another girl who will travel with us (who's already friends with Arturs), called Marta, from Poland, currently doing a MT in a chinese windmill company in the HR department. The four of us will be travelling together to have some accompany on the journey and watch out for each other's back.

Marta checked the tickets online for the hardseats, apparently there are few tickets for hard seats to SH departing from BJ at 10.09pm Friday night and arrives at SH at 11.09am Saturday morning. Although that means we'll be late for the start of the tour but at least it's only around 300-350RMB per ride. Jordan, Marta and I met up at around 6.30pm at the Beijing train station and FINALLY we got our tickets! We kept on being standing in a new line again and again because we forgot to take cash out, then we were told to go to another line for tickets within 3 days. The tickets we bought costs 327RMB per person. All the tickets from SH back to BJ were sold out at the BJ station so we were told by the ticket lady to buy it when we arrive at SH (fingers crossed).

After meeting Marta, Jordan and I started walking towards the Tian'anmen and National Opera House. I found out from the National Opera House website that on the 7th December there's a piano performance by Lang Lang!! I am so lucky!!! I just had an idea to check out the website and I found this performance! It's the only show that Lang Lang will perform in China this year and there are only a few tickets left! The price ranges from 180RMB to VIP ticket for 1280RMB per person. But by the time I checked, the cheapest ticket left is 780RMB. I struggled a lot, 780RMB is a lot, especially in China, but it's Lang Lang, he's too good to be missed. I told Jordan about this, about Lang Lang, about his successes so far (the winner of Lizst competition, performing for Obama, for the England Queen, for China's 60th anniversary and many more) and both of us got so excited about this performance! We are both pianists, so we both understand how lucky we are to have this opportunity. We're in!

We went into the subway line 1 and got off at the Tian'anmen West station. As soon as we walk out from the station there's direct entrance into the National Opera House (even without having to going to the ground level). We reserved the tickets online earlier and now we're here to pick it up! 780RMB for Lang Lang's performance for the memorial of 200 years of Chopin, this is too goo to be missed.

After getting the tickets, the excited Jordan and Nancy walked towards Tian'anmen Square. I told Jordan, Gerard and Josi about the night that I walked to Tian'anmen and how amazing and stunning the scenes are, and now it's Jordan's turn to experience the historical scene. Gerard and Josi are waiting for us at Xidan shopping centre already so we will all meet up for dinner and shopping very soon. I can't really describe how excited I am the second time I saw the Tian'anmen again. I had a better look at the square and at the buildings, around. These architectures possess the Chinese history and glory, success and failure, sense of proud and unity as a country.

We walked to Xidan (which is one subway station away from Tian'anmen) and finally met up with Gerard. Apparently although Josi called Jordan earlier that she finished work at 5.30pm but she got told to stay back for OT at the very last minute. Feel sorry for her for doing so many OTs. Initially our plan to come to Xidan was to help Josi to buy a jacket, but she's again being told to stay behind, so I guess we'll have to help her some other time.

Josi arrived about 10 minutes before the shopping mall started to close down, so we quickly had a tour inside the mall and took some photos. I saw this MASSIVE teddy bear (OMG!!!!) and it's only 138RMB!!! It'll cost 400NZD for the same size of teddy bear in Auckland, this is so crazy. If I had the luggage space I would sooooo buy it!!!!

As a group we really want to find some more time that we can all meet and just travel. We preliminary made a brief plan that if Gerard can get the weekend off on the 12th and 13th December (after my birthday) that we would have a Beijing tour. It would be so good if we can finally meet together.