Stair Master 5000

Monday was our trip to the Great Wall .We decided to go with the two Americans from our hostel, Alex and Andy. The tour that the hostel offered was $290 Yuan ($44USD) where as the bus was only $12Yuan (less than 2 dollars) each way. While Jess Showed I had breakfast with Alex and Andy. Alex is from St. Louis who is working & living in New Zealand and Andy is from Michigan who is living and working in southern China. I had two pieces of French toast, a banana and bacon- it was a dream! We were on the road by 9:30am and walked to the subway station and rode a few stops to the local bus stop. We knew that was wanted bus 919 but there were tons of busses all saying 919. We were confused and no one was willing to help us. At least in Japan is you had a confused look on your face people could come up and try to help. Here in China if you ask people for help they say no or shake their heads or say that they don’t have time. We were trying to point to a picture of the Great Wall and sign to the bus driver that we wanted to go there, when this Chinese man aggressively came up to us with very bad English. He kept yelling at us to come with him. We thought that he was a taxi driver and tried several times to tell him that we weren’t interested. His tone was very mean and aggressive. We continued to talk to the bus driver, but the man was creating quite a seen and said something to the bus driver about not letting us get on the bus. We were all very skeptical and annoyed at this point but we followed him for a while. Then decided to try to get on a different bus that said 919. This time the Chinese man pulled out a badge saying that he worked for the Red Cross in China and that we needed to trust him. We all laughed at the fact that he seriously was showing us this piece of paper saying the Red Cross and he clearly wanted us to then believe that he was therefore trustworthy. Annoyed but again having no other option we followed him some more and finally came to the right bus. We thanked the guy despite the fact that he was rude and yelled at us and chalked it all up to cultural differences.

After an hour and a half on a smelly bus we finally made it to the Great Wall. We were all stoked that it cost less than $4USD round trip! We had a hike quite a bit from the bus drop off to the enterance of the Great Wall. We went to the Badaling portion of the wall which is known for having lots of tousts. Like anyplace where there are lots of tourists there are lots of venders and hawlkers. We were shocked to see black bears in cages right outside of the enterace gates.

Toursits could pay $1Yuan (15cents) and get an apple that had been cut into pieces and can have the bears do tricks, then you throw them the apple. Alex, did it, and we got some great pictures of the bears despite the fact that we all felt bad for the bears. From there we bought our tickets. Lucky for me I’ve been using my ISIC card and have been getting half off on almost all enterance fees since I’ve been in China. It only cost be $25 yuan (a little over $3USD) to get in. The Great Wall is very very very steep and hilly.

I really put my physical ability to the test while I climbed. One Semester at Sea I had only made it about half way (though I was on a different spot on the wall)- I was ill prepared wearing flip flops and jeans. I have regretted not making it to the top ever since, and was determined to push myself. About a third of the way up Andy decided she was going to head back to the bottom. I felt bad that she was going alone and almost offered to turn around with her, but I decided that I needed to keep pushing myself. Slowly but surely I made it to the top. I was always lagging behind Alex and Jess, but not by far. I was proud of myself considering that Alex is a tall and lean guy. His strides are at last twice the size of mine. And Jess is so petite that she is litteraly half of my weight. Also the fact that my ankle was still weak from falling the morning before. That being said I was proud of myself for keeping up with them and reaching the top. Machu Picchu here I come! We rested at the top. I are a banana I had packed and drank some water.

We walked about half way down when we found sliding cars. Which look like a cross between a rollercoaster and a bobsled, but moved about as fast as a merry-go-round. It was a fun ride the rest of the way to the bottom and we were able to get some great pictures.

We all fell asleep on the bus ride home, I guess the hiking wore us out. Once we got back to Beijing we hopped on the subway and went to Olympic Park. We got there right at dusk so we were able to get lots of good pictures while it was light out, and after when the sun set and all of the lights came one. I loved seeing the pool, “the Cube” all light up- although I was secretly hoping Michael Philleps would appear out of no where.

 

 

We had dinner at a local Chinese restaurant that was kind of family style. Jess ordered a grilled Eggplant dish with terrikki sauce that I loved, and I has mostly the noodles with beef. I really liked it surpisingly. From there we hit the Wangfujing night Market. This is the same market that Andrew Zimmernan visted on his “Bizarre Foods“ show. They sell everything from glazed fruit to fried ice cream to chicken hearts to scorpions! Alex was the bravest and enjoyed trying many of the weird food. He and Jess shared fried snake which they both hated.

Alex also went on to try starfish, scorpion, seahorse, centipede, and silk worm! I was not brave enough to do that but it was definitely entertaining to watch him! We had a crowd following us and an old Chinese man ended up buying the centipede for Alex, it was quite a sight to see. The venders also loved watching all of the action that we were drawing in. They thought it was hilarious because when there was a lul in the crowd they would yell in perfect English “Hey, Sheep Penis”(obviously trying to sell their most valuable and exotic food as well as get arise out of us) it definitely shocked us every time. We decided to call it a night and head back to the hostel. Alex and I got a drink and sat in the lounge and chatted for a while then decided to call it a night.

On Tuesday we all got us and had breakfast together again. I had the same French toast was that equally as tasty. The four of us headed to Maos Musoleum to see Mao’s decaying body which everyone has been telling us is quite a site to see, but just as our luck would have it, the exhisbit was closed for the day. From there we decided to split up. Jess and I went on our way to the Forbidden City and walked around for a couple of hours. Althought I think that it was very important in Chinese history and it is interesting to see, I believe that this is the most boring part of the sights in Beijing. I remember not liking it much when I was on Semester at Sea and I had the same feeling all over again. The Forbidden Palace is huge (2.97 square kilometers) and its filled with building after building that all have the same Chinese look and decoration. Most of the rooms and buildings cant be entered and simply have a sign that reads “this is the area where the emperor would change before his public affrairs” or “this is the room where the emperor would rest on his way to meetings with official.” Sometimes there are small openings where toursits and peak their heads in and take a picture or two, but its very furturating because the Chinese find no shame in PUSHING you out of thr way to benefit their view. It was weird at first, but now that its happen 10,000 during the past few days I am so annoyed. Requardless, it was fun to walk around The Forbidden City and great to see again, but I’d be okay if I never went back there again. From there we headed to the Temple of Heaven which is my favorite temple in Beijing. I love the courtyard where hundreds of old people gather to play cards, countless games, sing, and even do yoga together. The temple itself is stunning, but watching the people interact gives me a great idea what their daily life is like and I love it. Afterwards we headed across the street to the Pearl Market again, we mostly did looking. They have every designer imaginable- Polo, North Face, Abercrombie, Coach, Longchamp, Rolex, etc. From there we had more time to kill so went to the Silk market, we left there empty handed. We got some ideas on the prices of things and we’ll be more than ready to go to shopping heaven in Shanghai. Shopping at these types of markets can be overwhelming at times. Literally if you look remotely interested then they pull you in. I had a little Chinese women who literally weight less than half of my weight grip my wrist and pull be into her stall to show me her bags. She insisted I look and it took us forever to get away from her. It can be fun haggling, but it’s difficult because you never know if your being ripped off or not, until much later. We stopped at a local hole in the wall restaurant for dinner and I attemped to get a dish similar to what I had the night before (noodles and beef). Somehow what we ordered ended up being small pieces of beef on the bone in a soup with noodles. I ate some of the noodles but it wasn’t very good and it annoys me that the meat is on the bones and your supposed to get it off in your mouth then spit it on the table. Yuck! After I got about half of the noodles I gave up. We headed back to the hostel and hung out in the common room. The room is very cozy, it has an open air feel and part of the room is completely windows on the side and celiing, it looks over at a beautiful court yard. The room is filled with comfy big couchs and tables. The hostel has a full kitchen and I was still kind of hungry so I ordered a little pizza. Alex and Andy met up with us and the 4 of us just relaxed. Andy also had night train back to Southern China so the three of us shared a cab to the airport. It was less than $2USD between the 3 of us- so cheap! I’m wrtting now as the train is rocking me to sleep. I better get some sleep before we arrive in Shanghai! More to come soon. Bye for now!

Love, Katie