National Day

Oct 10, 2013

Week 4

            National Day Week! We had some crazy experiences this week! Again with my Egyptian Friends we went out on an adventure! On October 1st, National Day, we went to Tian’an’men Square to see them raise the flag. I went to bed at about 12 or 1 and we left at 3:00 AM in the morning. At first in my mind I thought we would get there early before anyone else. Little did I know people had been there since the day before to see the flag raise. When we got there I had never seen so many people in my life. We saw this group sitting in a circle waiting for the events to begin. We set up camp not to far from the circle and waited for the next 2 and a half hours for the events to begin.

          Looking into the square you could only see a mass of heads. It was so crowded that everyones body was up against everyone else’s body. The whole Square was crammed with a billion people it seemed.

           It rained so we didn’t get to see the Fireworks, but they did let out like 5000 pigeons from the Forbidden City Gate. They flew around for like 15 min and then dissappeared in their newly organized flocks. It began pouring and the streets were flowing with water and bodies as everyone was forced out of the área by platoons of Chinese Soldiers. We found ourselves in an underpass to avoid the rain with everyone else. And as we came up out from the underpass we walked to the nearest Subway. It was cool to see my Egyptian friends so excited. They were singing traditional songs and fun tounge twisters they taught us in Arabic. “kebabwiKoftawiPototes”. When we got home, it was about 8:30 AM. I ate breakfast and crashed. It was so fun but gosh the night life sure takes a toll on you.