Hong Kong 10-19-09

Hong Kong is technically a part of China, but requires a separate visa, uses a different currency, and is full of city life, westerners, English speakers, and sky scrapers. It was nice to have a change of pace and see a big city.

Finding a hostel in HK is one of the easiest things to do, as you walk down the street wearing a backpack, it seems as if ever person in HK is offering you accommodation. We were warned of the scammers ahead of time and knew what to expect. On the way to our hostel (that we booked in advance) a few people would ask us which hostel we were staying at, when we answered, they would say “yes, this is the reception” and they would try to check us in and collect our deposit. Only when we said “we already paid in full online” would they direct us to where our hostel really was.

Another thing about the hostels in HK is that they are super small and pretty dirty. Our room had two beds in it and little room for anything else. The shower was above the toilet in a corner of the room and the door to the “bathroom” was broken and didn’t close all the way. Also, the hot water only worked from 7am-12pm or 7pm-12am. So, we had to shower on a schedule.

And in addition to all that, the street vendors on Nathan road (where we were staying) were relentless! As soon as we stepped onto the street we were mobbed with people saying “Rolex, would you like a Rolex, nice watch?”, “Suits, custom suits, we make for you”, “handbag my lady? Discount for you.” “Foot massage, one hour for 99 HK dollar”, “dinner here, special price, come look at our menu”. It was ridiculous! And looking around, there were more westerners/tourists than HK or Chinese residents. It was so odd to not stand out.

The city is really cool though. Rich and I took the Star Ferry across the bay to HK island and saw the skyline at night. We checked out night markets (similar to the silk market in Beijing), and took a skylift up to look over the city. The skyline was really nice to see, but unfortunately, it was a bit overcast the four days we were in town, so it looked a bit foggy.

Our last day in HK we met up checked out the antique street on HK island and walked around Soho. Later we headed to the race tracks (famous in HK) and met up with Rosalind, a friend of one of my friends from back home (Carolina). When Rich and I first got to the races we bought some beer and placed our bets after asking someone who worked there which horse he thought would win this race. We bet (for place or show) and watched in shock as our horse came in first! Rich entered a chugging beer competition, finished a pint in 5.23 seconds, and we placed our bets for the next race on a horse I thought would be lucky, and placed an even larger bet for win only. Our horse, number 5, was in 4^th place the entire race until in the final stretch he inched past the finish line first! We won 150 HK dollars and were so excited!!

Rosalind got to the races just as we won this race and gave us passes to get into the member’s only section. We were only allowed in for a little while until we were eventually kicked out because we weren’t wearing suits and business attire. Apparently flip flops and shorts don’t count as business dress. Who would have thought? We had a great time though and were so happy that we did so well betting on the races.

The next day Rich boarded a flight for Vietnam and I got on my plane to Thailand. It was really sad to say good bye after traveling together for over two weeks now. Rich is one of the most generous, fun loving, and easy going people I’ve ever met and I’m going to miss him and our photo taking competitions and constant jokes We plan to meet up again in Cambodia or Laos.. but if not, he’ll be in New Zealand in April when I get there, so we’re bound to cross paths again.

Time to explore Thailand.. land of beautiful beaches, full moon parties, jungles, temples, and cheap pad thai. Thailand here I come!

Yangshuo, China 10-15-09

Lots of sleep, listening to music, reading pages of my book (finished “Life of Pi”), and bowls of instant noodle soups later, we arrived in Guilin (a hub city to travel into). From Guilin we caught an hour and a half bus to Yangshuo and hoped our hostel owner would be there waiting for us (we had sent an email before we left and I also sent one on the bus ride there from my phone).

When we arrived at the little town of Yangshuo, at a gas station, we didn’t know where to go and our hostel owner was nowhere in site. A man came up to me trying to get me to ride on his rickshaw, and instead I acted out that I needed to use his cell phone. He called our hostel owner (luckily my phone has internet and I was able to pull up our reservation confirmation with the owner’s mobile number on it). The rickshaw guy spoke on the phone for a VERY long time and I wondered if he was even talking to the right guy, but eventually he handed me the phone and we found our hostel owner.

Richard and I introduced ourselves and followed him to our shuttle that would be taking us to the hostel…or so we though, until we saw him hop onto a scooter and point to his other friend on a scooter and smiled for us to join. Yup, they strapped our backpacks onto their scooters and we jumped on the back of them to ride to our new home. Our hostel, Yangshuo Culture House, was really cute. It's a family run place and they served breakfast every morning and cooked a huge variety of meals for the backpackers at dinner. When we arrived at 9pm, starving, the brother of the owner (the chef), cooked us up a few dishes and the food was delicious!

In the morning, Richard and I decided it would be nice to go for a bike ride around town. We rented a couple bikes from our hostel for about $3 US for the day and set off on our pink bikes. Before we could even make it down our block, an old Chinese lady who looked to be about 105 years old, was walking towards me and stopped to look at me. She pointed to my eyes and touched my hair and nodded approvingly. She had a smile on her face and was saying a lot of things in Chinese that I didn’t understand. Then she grabbed my thigh with her hands and made a gesture to stay I had muscles. The best though was that she then lifted up her pant leg all the way to her thigh to show me her bony little leg. I guess she was showing me the difference between us, but I just kept saying she was so strong and did my best impression of a muscle man.

The bike ride was great, we rode through the little town of Yangshuo, past all the little soup shops, repair shops, and dollar store-type shops. We rode about 30 minutes away towards the Li River with just a little town map to use as our guide. Every time we stopped to ask for directions, the locals would point in the same direction and say “bamboo raft?” “bamboo raft?”. We just wanted to get to the river and even less people in Yangshuo speak English.. so we just carried on along in the direction of the bamboo rafts figuring that the river would have to be there too.

By the time I heard the 10^th person yell out “bamboo rafts?”, I thought maybe it would be a fun thing to try anyway. So, Rich and I gave in and headed towards the rafts. When we got there, they bamboo raft people took our bikes and Rich and I acted like apes for about 20 minutes, acting out that we want our bikes to be at the bottom of the river when we get off. All these people could say was- “bamboo rafts?”

We stood around for a bit, unsure what to do next, until a man carrying a huge bamboo pole came walking towards us and hinted with a head nudge for us to follow. We walked down some steps and saw about 100 bamboo rafts. They were all long and narrow and made to seat two. We followed our bamboo guide to our raft and took a seat as he paddled and maneuvered his way out of the bamboo cluster.

The next 2 hours were incredibly relaxing and peaceful. We drifted down the dark blue Li River, completely surrounded by Limestone mountain peaks that this area is famous for. So famous, that the picture of these peaks and this river is on the back of China’s 20 Yuan bill.

The ride was smooth and breezy, with the exception of the few minor rapids we passed over along the river. A couple times our raft pulled along side another larger bamboo raft sitting on the river, where they sold drinks, beers, kabobs, fish, and fruit. We got a pomelo (this region is known for this fruit) which is a fruit that is similar to a grapefruit. It’s about 4 times larger, a bit sweeter, and a little less juicy. The fruit is a bit of a challenge to eat, it has a tough outer layer and then you have to sort-of pick the inside pulp out.. but it tastes really nice.

After the relaxing bamboo ride we hopped on our bikes and headed towards Moon Mountain, a mountain that has a hole in the middle of it. We had seen it in pictures before, but didn’t think it could be as substantial in person. Well, it was. The locals said we could climb to the top in only 30 minutes. Although doubtful, we decided to hike anyway. The trek was step after steep step, straight up the mountain. Huge stones were placed all up the slope of the mountain and hundreds of stairs later (about 30 minutes actually), we were there! The view from the top was incredible. We could see the whole town and it was nice to feel some cool wind after such a hike. We rode back to our hostel, just in time for our feast of dinner. 12 plates of food awaited us and we ate and ate and ate as more food appeared.

The following day we rented two scooters (for $5 each for the day) and decided to see what was outside of our small town of Yangshuo. We rode two hours away, past fields, farm lands, farmers, little shacks, and 3 very tiny villages. What we saw was almost indescribable in words. The countryside looked as if it were straight out of a movie. We saw men pushing wooden carts, kids running around barefoot, women carrying sticks on their shoulders with bags tied to either end of them, stray dogs running around, workers farming the land wearing triangle hats, and fields of crop land for miles; all while completely surrounded by gorgeous mountains. It was incredible. We stopped at a little house where a lady was selling pomelos and wound up meeting the whole family of 10. We stayed and talked to them for about 40 minutes (the two younger girls could speak a bit of English they learned in school) and we took pictures and laughed.

Rich and I carried on and scooted till we hit the Li River. The batteries on our electric scooters were about half-way down by this time (4:00pm) so we decided we should probably get back quickly. We barely made it, having to jump off our scooters and push them up hills while holding down the throttle, and driving at about 5 miles an hour is not fun when busses and huge industrial trucks are honking and driving around you.. but we made it back safe and sound. For the first time, I felt like I got to see the REAL China. And this day went down as one of my best days traveling… maybe ever.

Today we packed up our bags and headed to the train station to catch our 25 hour train to Hong Kong. You know.. I’m starting to get used to these long trains. We came fully prepared this time, 3 bowls of instant noodle soup each, some apples, bananas, and Oreo’s. All set.

It will be sad to leave China now, I’ve really enjoyed every city I have been too on this trip, especially Yangshuo. But.. I must carry on and explore some more.

Next stop, Hong Kong! :)

Chengdu, China 10-12-09

As soon as we got to Chengdu we hailed a taxi and checked into our hostel, Sim’s Cozy Garden Guesthouse. Sim’s was by far one of the nicest hostels I’ve ever stayed in! The place had a beautiful courtyard/garden and pond in the front. Our rooms had an Asian influence to them, a restaurant was built into the hostel (which had fantastic food), there was a pool table, ping pong table, and dart board in other areas, and the place even had a massive bar downstairs! If we didn’t come to Chengdu for the pandas and big Buddha, we wouldn’t have needed to leave our hostel for anything.

After our 16 hour train ride we were hungry and pretty tired (I only slept a few hours because of the snoring). We decided to go get massages but first stopped along the way for some food. We walked into a little place and were handed menus. Usually we can get by with ordering food by pointing at the pictures on the menu, or by pointing to food on other people’s plates, but this menu had no pictures and we were alone in the restaurant.

The restaurant owner only knew the word- Kung Pao Chicken in English (the most expensive thing on the menu we guessed). We kept saying “rice”, “noodles”... nothing worked. Luckily, I had my camera on me and since I usually take pictures of the good food we eat, I showed her pictures of rice, noodles, and soup. But, she just kept saying “no, no, no”. Supposedly they didn’t have any of that. So, we ordered the Kung Pao Chicken. Less than 5 minutes later we saw her carrying rice and something else in her hands so we ordered those too. We ended up with white rice, bamboo shoots, and the infamous Kung Pao Chicken, that had chili peppers in it that were so hot, we couldn’t even eat the dish. Rich and Richard each tried a pepper before we knew how hot they were and both of them needed about 10 cups of tea before they could talk again. Note: do not order the Kung Pao Chicken. Another thing that helped the meal taste a bit better was soy sauce. I learned how to say soy sauce (jiang yo) in Chinese back in Xian and it has been a life saver ever since!

After our bamboo shoots meal, we walked over to a Chinese massage shop we had heard about. I’ve had massages in the US before... you get your own room, the lights are dimmed, soft music is playing, and maybe a candle or fragrant scent is in the air… this place was the polar opposite of that. From the street we were able to look inside and see 8 people laying on tables with their clothes on, getting rubbed. We all looked at each other stunned… but proceeded inside anyway. We scoped out the massage scene for a little while, and the masseurs really looked like they knew what they were doing! So, we all signed up and waited our turns. After longer observation, we realized that all of the masseurs were blind. Apparently, it’s common to get a massage from the blind in China.

When it was my turn I watched my masseur walk towards the waiting area, I looked at him and pointed to myself with a quizzical look on my face and stood up. He didn’t do anything. So, I walked up to him and touched his hand and said Ni-hao (hello). He nodded and tapped the massage table gesturing that I should lie down. An hour later, I was massaged, stretched, twisted, shaken, cracked, and feeling pretty good actually. All of that for $3.50 US... not too bad!

On the walk back we stopped in a candy store and picked out all sorts of things that we had no idea what they would taste like. Some were really good and others were horrid, but it was still pretty fun to share and sample them all. We rented a movie at our hostel (they had over a thousand DVD’s for us to borrow and watch for free in our rooms), the guys picked up some take out noodle soup (which they had a fun time demonstrating and playing charades to get the soup shop owner to understand what they wanted), and we all ate our soup and watched the movie- Into The Wild in our room.

In the morning, we woke up early and took a 2 hour bus ride to Leshan and then rode around on a local bus to Dafo to get to the largest Buddha in the world (he was 233 feet tall). We took a lot of pictures (well, I did…because a really cool backpacker in Xian, Jono, gave me a photo stitching program and I wanted to practice using it). And a few hours later we headed back for another movie night.

The next day we went to the panda breeding base in Chengdu (the only breeding base in the world) and saw two-week-old baby pandas and full sized pandas, up-close and personal. It was fun to see them climb and lounge in the trees, eat bamboo, and gingerly walk around the play areas. They were pretty cute. We even saw some red pandas (never heard of those before), which were pretty cute too, but looked more like red raccoons than pandas.

For lunch we had noodle soup and dumplings (repetitive, but different and delicious every time), and then picked up some fruit for our train rides out of Chengdu. Our group of 4 was splitting up… Shelly and Rich were off to take a cruise on the Yangzi River and Richard and I were going to Yangshou to see the famous limestone mountain peaks on the Li River. We said our goodbyes at the train station and Richard and I got on our 26 hour long train ride.

Next stop… Yangshou! :)

Xian, China 10-8-09

We got off the train and headed outside to look for a lady named Lily holding up a sign with the name of our hostel- Shuyuan. We found her and collected the rest of our hostel group before walking to our shuttle van. Almost immediately, Richard and I met Shelly and Rich, a couple our age from Manchester who are two of the most outgoing people I’ve ever met. As we were walking to the bus, Shelly and I didn’t stop talking and Rich and Richard seemed to get along great too. We realized on the shuttle that we all had the same itinerary for the next week and started making plans.

We got to the hostel and settled in, drank some beers, walked around the town, and ate some local food from a soup shop. On the walk back we passed by a barber shop and Rich and Richard had a proper shave (both hadn’t had a razor shave in months). The ladies in the barber shop did a great job (despite the blood stains on their shirts) and now the guys look like innocent 16 year old boys. J

Back at the hostel we showered up, bought some alcohol, and headed downstairs to the bar with our new friends. Our group of 4 turned into 8 as we met some great people from South America and Europe. We played some card drinking games and somehow 3 times in a row I picked the card which meant to chug my whole drink. Within 5 minutes I was already 3 drinks ahead of everyone! We laughed the whole time and had the best night.

In the morning it was overcast and raining, but Shelly, Rich, Richard, and I decided to rent some bikes and tour around town anyway. We wanted to see the city wall and the Muslim district. So, fully suited up in our rain gear we peddled around Xian in the rain all day. The streets were so small, bicycle buggies and people were everywhere, and the city streets were filled with little shops and soup/dumpling shops. We stopped for some dumplings in the Muslim district and were amazed at how good they were! We rode through the district for a while and it was really astonishing to see so many Chinese Muslims.

We rode through farmers’ markets and side streets and everyone in Xian stared as us. Not only were we westerners, but we were riding on bicycles in the rain, in full rain gear, taking pictures, and laughing the whole time. While riding through a little market, a man yelled out- “HELLO!” We all smiled and yelled back- “HELLO”. Again, the only English word he knew and was so proud to use it. By now I know how to say hello and thank you in Chinese. They seem to help me out okay, but I’m working on learning some more words.

We rode though the streets and through an underground walkway to get to Xian’s Bell Tower. Inside the tower we watched a musical demonstration with traditional dancing and bell chiming; the music played inside this tower was broad casted for the city to hear. After leaving the tower we dropped off the bikes at our hostel, walked around for a bit, had more dumplings (amazing!) and noodle soup, and then called it a night.

The four of us woke up early the next morning and caught an hour long bus to take us to see the Terracotta warriors. The exhibit was pretty extraordinary (proclaimed the 8^th wonder of the world). Over 2000 years ago, 6,000 pottery warriors and horses were made and placed into this 203 foot long and 75 foot wide pit for Emperor Qin Shi Huang. He wanted to rule an empire in his afterlife as well and was buried alongside his clay army.

After seeing the army we headed home and everyone at our hostel got together for a ‘make your own dumplings” lesson. Later on Shelly, Rich, Koby (from Aus), Jay (from Aus), Richard, and I went out for a hot pot dinner. We had a better idea what we were doing this time, but we didn’t expect that when we ordered chicken, they would bring us 16 chicken heads! Rich wound up trying one of them after a bet, but the rest remained untouched. Aside from that, our dinner turned out pretty well.

The next day the four of us (Shelly, Rich, Richard, and I) packed up our bags and got on our 16 hour- hard sleeper train to Chengdu. This was my first time in a hard sleeper and it was rough! The beginning of the ride was fine... the four of us talked and ate some instant noodle soup. But around 12:00am when it was bedtime, it was impossible to sleep. In our 6 bunked-bed tiny room, I was on the top bunk (3^rd up) and the guy next to me on the 3^rd bunk was snoring, the guy under me was snoring, and the guy across from me on the 2^nd bunk was snoring. For more than 2 hours I laid in bed with my headphones on listening to loud relaxing music trying to block out the noise…no luck. ! I got up around 3am to use the restroom (a tiny-tiny room with a hole in the floor, no toilet paper, no sink... nothing) and on the way back was searching for another bed to switch into. From the bathroom, on the other side of the train section, I could hear my bunkmates snoring! I noticed that the two highest beds in Shelly and Rich’s room were free (there are no doors on any of the hard sleeper rooms). I climbed up to the third bed and for the first time in hours barely heard any noise. It was amazing. I climbed back down to check on Richard who was in the snoring room. He was wide awake and hadn’t been able to sleep for hours either. I told him about my discovery and we migrated to the top bunks and were finally able to sleep. Hmm... maybe next time I’ll stick to a soft sleeper?

(Shelly in the hard sleeper)

Time to explore Chengdu..

Beijing, China 10-1-09

I’m in China! Walking through the airport, stuffing into a subway, and making my way through the city on that first day is something I will never forget. After traveling through Europe for a couple months, I thought I was pretty good with the language barrier thing, but China is a whole other animal! It is very rare to find someone here who speaks English and the only word I know in Chinese is Ni Hao (hello).

Josh, a friend of mine from back home, really hooked me up and was able to get me a room at a nice hotel in Beijing for a few nights. I had the hotel name and address written down and when I was at the airport withdrawing money, I had someone write the hotel name down in Chinese characters. I was able to get an idea of which metro I had to take to get there and started towards the hotel.

The security in China is ridiculous, they make you and your bags go through scanners every time you enter a subway station, train station, or popular tourist site. After taking my 21kg bag on and off a few times, I was ready to get to my hotel. I kept showing my Chinese character piece of paper to everyone and followed the pointed fingers until I eventually ended up at my hotel, Jianjuo Hotel in Beijing. The place way gorgeous and I was unsuited to be there with my huge backpack on. The bell hop took my bags and brought me up to my room. It was incredible. I had a balcony view of the whole city, huge king sized bed, flat screen TV, walk in rain shower. It was heaven and much different than what I had been used to. I settled in, slept for a few hrs, walked around the streets, ate some noodles at a restaurant nearby, and called it a day.

The next few days in China were very overcast and foggy. And because the National Holiday was in a couple days it was very difficult to get around the city. Road were blocked off and officers were setting up preparation, bleachers, banners, and flowers everywhere. I was able to see Tiananmen Square, but my first few days in Beijing were mostly spent in my cozy hotel, taking advantage of my luxury, swimming in the pool, going in the sauna, steam room… the works.

National day was on October 1^st 2009 and the entire city shut down for its 60^th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. The streets were blocked off by police, cars were not allowed to drive, the subway system was turned off, busses weren’t running.. you get the idea. I really wanted to get to Tiananmen Square to see the tanks, soldiers, marching bands, fireworks, etc… but we (any normal person) weren’t allowed to get there. My hotel said the best way to watch was to sit in front of a TV. Well, for about 5 hours I sat at the hotel, but then the captivity police left and I found out we had about 4 hours to walk around if we wanted to. I was determined to see the big show and found a round-a-bout way to get to the square by taking a different metro line that was working and switching till I was within walking distance of the square. I figured if I got to the area, I’d be able to somehow get it. Wow, was I wrong! I couldn’t even get near the square. Police and security were everywhere! Lined up all along the streets, standing in a line and blocking every road. I tried to explain to the officers that I wanted to see the show and only heard “No, not possible, must go”. Disappointed, I turned around to take the same metro and was instantly denied. The metro was closed. And under no circumstances were they going to let me through. I had to walk about 15 blocks to get out of the center of the city and then was able to catch a taxi to take me near my hotel. From there I had to walk a bit more to make it home. Well, can’t say I didn’t try. The best part of that evening was when I was walking through these tiny side streets. Two little Chinese boys ran up to me and one said “HELLO, MY NAME IS JASON”. I said, “Hi, Jason. My name is Lauren, how are you?” He just looked at me confused and puzzled look on his face and repeated, “Hello, my name is Jason”. Well, that was all he knew. But it was still fun to see the excitement he had to share his English with me. The boys followed me on their wiggle-skate boards for a little while and I took pictures till we went our separate ways.

On Oct 2^nd I packed up my stuff and headed to a hostel I had booked which looked pretty good from the pictures and ratings on Hostelworld.com. As soon as I arrived to The Chinese Box I met a guy named Benji from France who wanted to check out the Summer Palace. We went around 4pm and stayed long enough to watch the sunset behind some mountains. We headed back to the hostel, ate dumplings with the entire hostel (the hostel owners had a dumpling party and made everyone dinner). Later we met up with some other friends and went out. First we went to a bar street nearby and then took another taxi to more of a downtown area where they had huge clubs. We went into two called Coco and L.A. which were both incredible. They reminded me of the ones back home in South Beach, but were even better. Four DJ’s were spinning at the same time in the club LA, the music was great, lights flashed everywhere, and made designs in the room so it looked like we were standing in cages, or bubbles. And they had bubble machines going off too. It was a great night.

The following day I headed to Tiananmen Square with Anas, a cool guy from the US. The square was crazy packed with Chinese tourists (this whole week was a holiday and most Chinese residents traveled to Beijing for the celebrations). All of the floats from the parade were on display and all I could see were Chinese people for miles!

The funny thing here is that Americans, or white people, are extremely rare. When I’m on a subway, every person around me is staring in my direction. They look at my hair, face, clothes… just curious. But, they never look away, even if we catch eyes. And if I’m walking down the street, a Chinese person walking towards me will stare the entire time until we pass each other. It’s so odd. I sort of feel like a celebrity because they all want to take pictures with me too. The first time I was asked to “take a photo” I was a little puzzled because I went to grab the guy’s camera but instead, he passed it to his wife and swung and arm around me to smile for a picture!

Almost every girl here has dark eyes and dark straight hair. A rare few lighten their hair or perm it curly. Also, the girls are obsessed with having fair skin. A lot of them wear white make-up on their face and cover up their arms so their natural skin color doesn’t show. We (backpackers) were warned not to buy lotion or face wash here because they all have whitening agents in them. So, I’m sure I must be an odd site for the girls to see, since I have light skin, light-brown curly hair, and blue-green eyes.

Anas and I had a good time walking around, posing for pictures, and checking out the floats. We made our way to the Forbidden City and had a Chinese Tour guide show us around for about 5 dollars US. He is a history professor at a University in a neighboring city, came to Beijing for the Holiday, and decided to work by giving tours of the Forbidden City since he knew so much about it. It was nice to walk around with him and listen.

Anas and I ate some dumplings and rice clusters on the way back and met up with everyone at the hostel. In Beijing is an infamous night market which sells all sorts of weird food items.. fried snake, frog, crickets, starfish, sea horses, silk worms, scorpions, and even dog and cat in the back of the market. Anas, Ginny (my roommate, from Washington), Richard (great guy from the UK), and I decided to go. We walked around for a while and I was sort of in shock at what was being sold. Richard had been before and said we should try the scorpion. We had two options.. the tiny baby ones that were skewered on a stick and still moving, or the papa scorpions which were massive. At first I was thinking about getting a set of 5 baby ones on a stick, but then figured.. I’m probably only going to do this once in my life, might as well do it right and go big. I ordered up and watched as they dipped my scorpion into a disgusting pot of boiling oil. I tried to ask for them to put a sauce on it, but of course, no one speaks English and they had no idea what I wanted.

Well, it was time. I stared at the scorpion for a few seconds, trying to figure out the best way to do this, and then counted to 3 in my head and took a big bite! I had bit the scorpion in half and was chewing with my eyes closed expecting the worst… and then surprise.. I opened my eyes and said, “it’s not that bad!” It was just crunchy and chewy and tasted like fried oil… until I swallowed. Instantaneously, an overwhelming taste of foul dead insect filled my mouth and nostrils, it was so gross! Richard was taking pictures and laughing hysterically- it’s so funny to see my face change in the pictures from “delighted” to “disgusted”. I washed the taste of scorpion down with some coconut milk (they were selling coconuts at the market too). And for the rest of the time there, I realized that the unfamiliar scent the market had when I first walked it (which I didn’t mind then), now smelt of the fried scorpion and I couldn’t take it much longer. Ginny and Anas were brave too and they each had two baby scorpions. It was fun to watch them eat them, but they said they couldn’t really taste anything.. the baby scorpions just tasted crunchy. We headed back to the hostel and got to sleep early for our big day tomorrow.

My phone alarm went off at 5am and I got packed up and ready to hike the great wall. We drove 4 hours to a more isolated section of wall and hiked on top of the wall for 10 km. The section we did was the Jinshanling wall which stretches 10.5 km from Longyukou in the West to Wangjinglou in the East. This section of the wall was originally built in 1368 during the Ming Dynasty and was rebuilt in 1567. A lot of it had been refurbished, but the best parts (and most difficult to climb) were untouched. Luckily I had my sneakers on.. I didn’t realize how much of a hike this would be! The hike itself was four hours long and was non-stop up and down steep stairs. It was exhausting, but exhilarating at the same time because the view was incredible (the Beijing skies finally cleared up and we could see for miles) and I was just sort-of in awe at the fact that I was actually AT the GREAT WALL. It was one of the best feelings I’ve ever felt.

At the end of the hike was the option to walk down the mountain or take a zip-line, so naturally, I strapped myself in and took off. It was a gorgeous view from the air as I was zip-lining over a river while still being able to see mountains and the great wall all around me. Our Great Wall group had a huge Chinese buffet at a restaurant at the bottom of the wall and then headed back.

The next day, Anas and I headed to the silk market and spent the day haggling. The Chinese sellers were relentless and always ended the transaction by screaming, yelling, sometimes hitting, pulling on our clothes, or chasing us down the isle to drag us back. We knew we had gotten a good deal when they had a scowl on their face and were almost upset to let us have the item for that price. The way it works is, they take out a calculator and type in a ridiculous amount, 700 Chinese Yuan (which is about 100 US), then I would take the calculator and type in 14 Yuan (about 2 dollars). This would go back and forth for almost 30 minutes every time. I left the market with my prized goods and gave so much credit to Anas for being able to stand the abuse from the female Chinese sellers. They were actually hitting him and yelling at him and calling him horrible names because he was pricing too low. Crazy people!

In the morning, Richard and I decided it would be a good day to rent bikes and tour the city. We started off the day with a hot pot lunch. Our table had a huge hole in the center of it where they place a big bowl full of soup. Under the table was a gas heater which kept the pot hot. Then, we got to order anything we wanted and cooked the veggies and meat ourselves. Lunch was great and cheap (less than 4 US a person) and we hopped on our bikes to cruise around Beijing.

Seeing the city from a bike is a completely different experience. The flow of traffic here works by push and shove. Even if the light is red, cars, bikes, and pedestrians will move forward and make their way across. Everyone is aggressive at first, but then patient to let each other pass. It’s very interesting to see. We rode all day and took pictures from our bikes of the city and each other. It was fun to pass all the Chinese people who would just stare and watch us crazy foreigners on bikes.

We rode past Tiananmen Square, to the Temple of Heaven (where we locked up our bikes and walked around), and then rode all around the area. We played a game to see how many people we could get to wave at us and I would say Ni Hao and smile to anyone who was staring. It was one of my favorite days in Beijing. On the way home we stopped at a glasses store where I picked up my custom prescription glasses I had made for about 30 US.

My original plan was to go to Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and then fly to Bangkok, Thailand. The longer I stayed in Beijing and talked to people at my hostel, the more I realized that I wanted to see more of China. Richard and a couple others were going from Beijing to Xian to see the Terracotta warriors, then to Chengdu to see the largest Buddha in the world and to see some pandas, and then to Guilin to see the limestone mountain spikes of Yangshou and cruise on the Li River. Well, Richard convinced me and I changed all of my plans around.

The funny thing/best thing about traveling is that you realize anything you want to do is up to you. Plans can change at any time. This was my second time changing my itinerary around and already it’s getting easier. This just seems like the right thing to do.

The next day Richard and I boarded our train which would get us to Xian in about 12 hours. The traveling options on the trains are to stand, have hard seats, soft seats, hard sleepers, or soft sleepers. Standing is the cheapest, and it means standing the whole time. The hard seat is a fold-down cheap seat where everyone is crammed together, shoulders touching one another and knees touching the person sitting in front of you. A soft seat is a slightly better seat and the seating is similar to an airplane, a row of people and you get a fold down table. The hard sleeper is a small room with 6 beds in it, 3 bunked on one side and 3 bunked on the other. The room is 5 feet wide, 6 feet long and has no privacy since there are no doors or lights. The soft sleeper is the best option and most expensive. It’s the same size as a hard sleeper but there are only 4 beds (two bunked on either side) and there is a door, air conditioning control, volume control for the announcements, and light switches.

We had soft sleepers, paid around $50 US for the tickets and slept for 10 hours on the overnight train. It wasn’t bad at all and was quite comfortable since it was just Richard, me, and a Chinese woman in the room who slept the whole time too. Not a bad way to get around China.

Next stop, Xian!