It's been quite a week so I think we'll take this one day at a time...
Wednesday
We finished teaching and went straight to the train station where we got on a twenty-one hour sleeper train. Yes, twenty-one. Hours. I was lucky enough to get a bed- some of our group had to sit on the hard seats the whole way... I said, "heck no."
Thursday
So we arrived in Beijing on Thursday morning and headed to our hostel right in the heart of the city! As soon as we settled in we went out exploring the shops around us.
Thursday night we went to the Olympic Nest where the Olympics were held in 2008. That's when the wind began... and it didn't stop for most of the weekend. I literally almost blew away. BUT all that wind blew out the pollution and we had clear skies the entire time!
We were freezing!
No fat jokes please.
Friday
We arranged a tour of the Great Wall through our hostel so we woke up early and got on a bus that took us up to the mountains where the wall is. The drive took about three hours. Our tour guide was the tiniest, cutest Asian girl that had this high squeaky helium voice and although I know she was speaking English I had no clue what she was saying the entire time. It was hilarious.
Needless to say, the Great Wall was incredible. We got to see some of both the restored and original wall. It sure was GREAT!
When we got to the first tower everyone was climbing in through the windows...
So as the ninety year old Asian woman is literally pulling me through the window I heard a great big rip...
But how many people can say they ripped their pants on the Great Wall of China? It was a worthy sacrifice.
I made sure to leave my mark on the wall :)
Can't go anywhere without a photo shoot! These two were real winners.
When you travel with a bunch of girls you're bound to get at least one cheesy picture everywhere you go.
That night we thought we'd take a leisurely stroll around Qianmen Square which was literally a block away from the hostel. Just one problem: we literally couldn't figure out how to cross the street. It was the funniest thing. The whole square and the streets around it were blocked off so we just looked from a distance- still beautiful!
Saturday
First on the agenda was the Lama Temple {as in the Dalai Lama}I was pretty disappointed because I assumed it was the "llama" temple and would be the llama festival we have in Utah on steroids but no llamas here :(
There were several buildings similar to these ones, each of which had huge gold statues and intricate decorations inside. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the temples... Most of the people there were burning incense {that's what all the smoke is} and praying to the statues.
After that we went to the Temple of Heaven. It was beautiful but when you've seen one temple in China you've kind of seen them all and I was exhausted so I took a nap on the lawn... And even while I was sleeping people were taking pictures of/with me. It doesn't even phase me anymore.
Next on our list was the Pearl Market which is a big open mall with every brand-name knock off you could imagine. I didn't get a picture but it was awesome and bartering was the funnest thing once I got the hang of it. The shop owners there can be scary- they will grab you, yell at you, and try to rip you off but if you're smart and strong you can get some crazy deals.
I was careful with my money {because I have none} and didn't buy near as much as some of the other girls but here's what I did buy:
Beats headphones [about 20 US dollars]
Beats earbuds [about 10 US dollars]
Ray Ban sunglasses [about 11 US dollars]
There were tons of white people at the Pearl Market and we ran into a few people from different ILP schools. There was one guy there that asked us our opinion on a pair of shorts he wanted and we got talking. Turns out he's from Utah and went to Alta! When I told him I went to Olympus he said "no way, my friend that's here with me went there!" So I went and found that guy and we made some connections. SMALL WORLD. What makes it even smaller is that the next morning I was putting on my makeup at the hostel and both of them walked past me and said hi again- yep, they were staying at our same hostel. Who would have thought that I'd run into people from my same hometown in the biggest city in the world?? Crazy!
Saturday night we went to an acrobat show! Our hostel had arranged for someone to take us so we followed some lady down all these side streets to another hostel where we joined a couple of Canadians that were also going to a show. As we're waiting for them, the driver tells us to meet him "down the street" when we were ready to go and "find him" because Asian men all look SO different and are extremely easy to identify in a crowd... Whatever. So we start walking down the street which ends up in some sketchy alley and we find our little driver standing outside an even more sketchy white kidnapper van. So we piled in! Took them a while to get the door to close because it was broken... He takes us to the theater, pulls over, and says "ok, here!" so we get out and he drives off. Bye?
We were laughing so hard.
Anyway, the show was legit. At one point they had a giant steel ball with FIVE motorcycles doing tricks inside at the same time. I have never been so stressed in my life.
Sunday
Qianmen Square! Honestly, not much to see but it sure was windy!
So this is actually the famous Tianamen Square where hundreds of protesters were killed in the 80s but it's super hush hush around here and most locals don't even know what happened there. To the Chinese, it never happened... kind of weird. The Chinese call it Qianmen Square... I don't know why it's different.
We then headed to the Forbidden City which was AWESOME! Incredibly windy, but awesome.
Seriously, so windy.
This guy was on time-out.
The Forbidden City was huge and we exited on the opposite side we entered but we couldn't find a metro station so we literally had to walk all the way around the Forbidden City to get back to the entrance to get on the metro. TOO MUCH WALKING.
That afternoon we went shopping at the Silk Market which is essentially the same thing as the Pearl Market but with different stuff. I got...
North Face coat [about 15 US dollars]
Urban Decay Naked 2 Pallet [about 7 US dollars]
Dolce & Gabana perfume [about 5 US dollars]
That night we boarded a train for Xi'an- our very last long distance train ride! Ever! It was about 13 hours but I slept the whole way so it flew by.
Monday
I woke up on the train Monday morning feeling awful and stayed in bed at the hostel the rest of the day. So Monday was pretty lame but here's some pictures from hanging out at the hostel...
Tuesday
Terracotta Warriors!!!! I had no idea they were only discovered forty years ago. They're still working to uncover and restore them and they think there may be more "pits" of warriors that haven't been located yet. We got to see the pits where the actual warriors are currently being uncovered. A team of archaeologists come in every night after tours are over and work to piece together the clay statues since they are all broken. So cool!
He was planking long before it was cool.
These were made well before Christ was even on the Earth- it blows my mind!!
Some guy dressed as a warrior was taking selfies with us. So great.
We got back to the hostel that evening and I put on my Aladdin pants that I bought in Beijing which are sweeeeeeet {I'm wearing them as we speak}and that's when my friend Noor and I unleashed our inner Indian...
We went to a water show at the south square to celebrate our last night of vacation before we flew home the next day. It was a great way to end a great week!
I LOVE CHINA!
