Sexy Beijing

Beijing is full of beautiful architecture, temples, shops, Western stores, Olympic preparations. It's impossible to view everything in 4 days. Unfortunately, we only had 4 days and a speech competition and a conference to attend as well. This meant we had to choose some sites and leave others for next time. However, most of the things I saw blew my mind.

On the first day, I went to the Forbidden City with my friend and colleague. We spent 3 hours there. We were constantly amazed and filled with wonder at what it would be like to live in the Forbidden City all those years ago and how impossible it would be to get into the heart of the Forbidden City and overthrow the Emperor.


The last full day, I went with some colleagues to the Lama Temple, which has a 26-meter-high Buddha statue, carved from one ginormous sandalwood tree. We thought it would be cool to see. We went near closing time, and we only had 30 min to explore. When we made it to the place where the Buddha was, we walked inside and looked straight up. We likened the statue to the statue in Clash of the Titans or Ursula at the end of The Little Mermaid. The size of the tree itself must have been quite a marvel at the time because we couldn't believe that the wood had been carved in one piece. (It was verified by the Guinness Book of World Records.)


-吴佩芙