Ride the Train at 1:38 AM

I finally left Beijing yesterday afternoon after eating the best noodles in my entire life. We went to the forbidden city in the morning, which is huge. It's where the emperor lived with the government officials and his eunuchs and concubines. (I always marvel at how rich people get in a caste system) It's really beautiful and really exotic and it's right outside tiananmen square.Tiananmen square is gigantic. It's basically a huge courtyard the size of several football fields and it's right at the entrance to the forbidden city. As you enter the forbidden city there is a series of gates or buildings you walk through. The first one is called Tiananmen
tian=heaven
an=peace
men=gate
Tiananmen = Gate of Heavenly peace

and on that gate is a giant picture of Mao Zedong, who Chinese people for the most part love. In the middle of Tiananmen square is a mousoleum that has Mao's body preserved inside. Yay. You can go look at it, but it was closed the day we went. Darn. Really interesting place. Anyways, after we left the forbidden city we were going to go to the zoo, but we never made it. We got hungry and ate at this hole in the wall place down some series of alleys. I wanted fried rice, but the guy I was with ordered noodles, turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. My noodles had tomato and egg inside and some type of leak, and it was awesome. A lot of the food here doesn't need sugar, it's so different, but it still tastes delicious. Anyways, hooray food, moving on.

Last night we got on a train called a sleeper train. You basically get on at night, hop in a bunk bed, go to sleep, and then wake up in the morning in a different province. We ended up on a really nice train, it was tight for space, but not as tight as the lower class trains. We had four bunks in our room. Had it been the middle class train (which is what our program director was hoping for) we would have had six bunks in a room, and had it been the low class train, it would have probably been a reality check for me. It's funny how big a difference there is in standard of living. I've heard that people don't need much to be happy though. I guess I'll find out soon since Hunan is supposed to be one of the least developed provinces, so I'm sure I'll get a chance to see a lot of things up close.

I had my final debriefing today about how to teach English and the kinds of things I'll have to work with culturally and overall. I'm sure I'll have a lot of things to blog about. Tomorrow morning I'll get picked up and taken from here in Changsha to Yongzhou which is where my middle school is.

For now this is kind of a travel log. Sorry about that, but It'll be more cultural the longer I'm here.

Once again, thanks for the emails. It's really nice to hear from everyone. If you have skype let me know so I can put your name in. Here's my email one more time gadiandi@gmail.com, I'd love to hear from you.