The Cleveland Orchestra Youth Orchestra is on tour in China, where they will perform concerts in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Ningbo. WCLV has signed up three orchestra members as "field reporters" to send back pictures, video, audio, and text of their experiences.
Day 2 update from Serena, Principal Second Violin
We're back on our buses after a few hours at the Great Wall of China, exhausted, happy, and very excited to be on our way to lunch at a nearby restaurant.
It's a beautiful day here on the outskirts of Beijing; the sun is shining in a light blue sky (a rare occurrence, apparently, as both sun and sky are frequently concealed by a layer of smog from the city. We'll take this weather as a good luck omen for our adventures ahead!) It is also about 90 degrees here--hot, for sure, but a pleasant reminder that it is summer and we have left busy school years behind for a fantastic trip together.
Before we arrived at the Wall, it was easy to consider it just one of countless tourist attractions sprinkled throughout the globe. But there was something about climbing the wall ourselves, about sweating and breathing loudly as we did it, about climbing with new and old friends, that put the wall in a whole other category of tourist destinations. We finished our visit proud of our climb, perhaps proud with shaky legs, and this pride will surely help preserve long-lasting memories of our visit to the Great Wall of China.
This afternoon, we're headed to the Temple of Heaven, to dinner, and then to a rehearsal at The Children's Palace before another good night's sleep back at the hotel. We send our very best to Cleveland, and more updates will follow soon!