Ms. Williams, Ms. Cooper and Mr. Cameron left Mooroolbark College at 6 .45 a.m on Tuesday morning to go to Melbourne Airport. The plane left at noon, and after a couple of flights and a short stop in Shanghai, we eventually arrived in Beijing. A bus was waiting to take us to our hotel, and so we were finally able to check into our hotel rooms at 4.30 a.m. Melbourne time, almost 24 hours after we left our homes.
With only a few hours sleep, we had to drag ourselves down to the lobby for our first day in Beijing, a huge city of around 21 million people.
We were split into teams with our other colleagues for a ‘Race around Beijing’. The three Mooroolbark staff were put on different teams, I believe this was because the others felt they had no chance of winning if were able to combine our amazing skills and powers.
But off we went with a sealed envelope and a series of tasks and challenges. We had to find things, taker photos for proof, get on a bus, get on a train, buy stuff, order lunch and meet up in Tianenmen Square – all with no help from our tour guides. I won’t tell you which team won, because that might embarrass the others. Let’s just say that Ms Cooper and Ms Williams weren’t on the team that came first.
It was a fabulous experience and we learned a lot about how a big city runs – and how difficult it can be to find something or buy food when you can’t read the writing and no-one speaks English.
The whole group spent the afternoon walking through the ancient Forbidden City. It’s incredible, and very beautiful. Check it out on the internet.In the evening we had a welcome dinner at a downtown restaurant, and then were taken back to our hotel.
The food was great, but the best thing was crawling into our beds after such a long day to try and catch up on all the sleep we missed the night before.
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