I went to Beijing and it was fun

Hey guys,
I apologize if this post is even more dull than my typical entries. It is nearly midnight and we got back to the dorms at two am this morning. I would have slept like a champion, except for the alarm that woke me up at 7 am for 9 hours of class. Needless to say, I've had my fair share of caffeine to get throughout the day.
Beijing was a tremendous city. The only complaint that I have is the pollution and the time constraints on our trip. I would have really enjoyed to have an extra day to see some more of the sites. I will have plenty of time to explore when I am back there in a couple of years (I will explain later).
Chris and I stayed with a BC classmate, Will Smith, who is currently studying at the Peking University. The University is ranked among the world's top twenty, and is readily considered to be the top in Asia. He was gracious enough to give Chris and I a place to stay- well, he tried to.
I arrived to Beijing on my own late on Thursday night. By the time my plane landed, it was already midnight, and I had to try and convince some of the taxi drivers to take me to the school. It's weird- they don't speak much English in Beijing. I finally got to the campus, but I soon realized that the campus was rather large, and I was about a 25 minute walk from Will's dorm. A local girl on a bike helped me to the dorm. She spoke broken English, and was in her final year of studying Chemistry. She has already been accepted to UPenn, UChicago, and UCLA in the States and is trying to decide where she wants to go to Graduate School. Tough Life...
Upon my arrival, Will passed out in preparation of his 8 1/2 hours of Friday class. While Will was working on his Mandarin, etc. I headed to the Silk Market with his roomate, Kelvin. Kelvin was born in China and has lived in Kansas City for quite a while. He is studying at Pomona College out in California. He ended up playing tour guide for a lot of the weekend. His knowledge of the language was an invaluable asset. Kelvin was quite impressed by my learned negotiating tactics, and even recruited me to buy a watch and some other items for him. I purchased four tailored shirts (for $10 each) and 5 silk ties ($1 each). We had a lot of fun.
The next day, Chris and I piggybacked on Will's exchange program's trip to the Great Wall. The group took us far out of the city to a remote section called Huanghuacheng. The lake was stunningly beautiful, and we all had a great time trekking around. There is usually a zip-line that can be taken across the lake, but there were a number of local guys doing work on the line and had closed it down. Maybe next time... Before heading back to campus, I bought some dried fruits from the local street vendors, and was pleasantly surprised.
When we finally got back to the University, my mood was quickly dampened as we watched the end of the Boston College vs. Villanova basketball game. If you didn't see, we lost in overtime by one point on a goaltending call. It was the right call, but a painful way to lose. It's a real shame that we lost- I think we would have had a great chance to beat Florida to make it to our first Final Four in school history. The way the the rest of the brackets played out, a National Championship was well within reach. I guess there is always next year.
To save our mood, we went to the supermarket on campus and went on a DVD binge. Seriously, it was ridiculous. Chris and I are working to build our DVD collections for when we have to move out of the house and set up shop on our own. We are more than well on our way.
Feeling exponentially better about life, we headed to have our Peking Duck meal. I couldn't have been more satisfied. Here is a little list about the stuff we (four guys and a vegetarian girl) ate:

1. Cooked Peanut Dish
2. Bean, Veggie, and Onion dish
3. Spiced Noodle Dish
4. Donkey meat- served sliced and cold on a platter
5. Ox Tongue- served sliced and cold on a platter
6. Snake, Turtle, and Scorpian Special- it ended us being a soup- we were slightly disappointed
7. 2 full ducks- served with homemade wraps and fixings too- phenomenal
8. ...and of course copious amounts of Yanjing 12 degree beer (Beijing's finest)

*This meal was delicious. I got a chance to try some other cool items the day before. For lunch, I had a rabbit stir-fry dish. The meat was incredibly tender and I really enjoyed it. Also, I ordered a shredded and spiced eel in beer sauce, which was pretty tasty. That night, Kelvin ordered a bunch of the specials at a local restaurant. The main attraction were the same wraps that the Peking Duck came in, but served with an enormous omelet and other fillings. The highlights of that meal were the great food, the awful service, and the manager who could open our bears with the back of a frail wooden chopstick. It was tight. But I digress...

After the Peking Duck dinner, we could hardly move from the meal. We waddled back (I think it was the duck influence) to Will's campus and spent the rest of the night testing the DVD's that we bought.
The alarm had us up and out on Sunday morning. There was way too much of the city that was unexplored, and not enough time to see it all. Unfortunately, because of the layout of the city and the location of the school, it took nearly an hour to make the 7 mile trip downtown. There was a lot of wasted time. We got to see the Summer Palace in the morning. The grounds were much larger than I thought they would be. Before lunch, we also made it down to see Tian'anmen Square and the entrance to the Forbidden City. At this point, we were feeling pressured for time. Chris and I decided that we would go see Lama Temple and, time permitting, the other side of the Forbidden City. Time was not on our side, but the Lama Temple was great. In fact, it plays host to the largest standing Buddha in the world. The Buddha was quite a sight, and Chris snapped a photo when the guard had his back turned.
Unfortunately, it was time to bid farewell to an incredible city. I know that next time I go back, things will be very different. The amount of construction that is being done in preparation for the 2008 Olympics is mind- boggling and the government is pressing hard for development (they can- they don't vote on things there). However, it is time that I let you in on a little secret.
I have decided that after graduating from Boston College, I will spend a year at Beijing Language and Culture University to enroll in an intensive Mandarin program. I'm documenting this decision now, because I want to hold myself accountable for this decision, and I want the people that are close to me to make sure that I do it. After spending this summer in New York, and next year in Boston, there will be plenty of reasons for me to abandon my plans, but I think that would be tragic. I'll be back to Beijing in a year and a half. I'll finish my DVD collection then. Signing off-