Hello everyone! So China was amazing! This country is like an entire different world especially when it comes to sanitation, rules, food, and so much more. But I LOVED it! We arrived to Hong Kong on the morning of March 29th. I could already feel how much colder China was than Viet Nam, and that made me very happy! Ha But where we were ported you could see the entire Hong Kong skyline and it is HUGE! It goes on forever and the buildings are really unique! Anyway we got off the ship and went out to travel the city. There is a definitive language barrier in China, unlike most of the other countries we have visited. They speak some English, but hardly any. On our way to the markets, we walked through a park that was filled with workout stations, colorful plants, and hills of hikes. After that, we went to the markets and purchased many fake items! Ha And the Chinese are so much fun to bargain with! By now, we pretty much know how much things cost and we also know how to really argue with them and let them know they cannot take advantage of us. So it was quite fun to watch them freak out when they realized that we knew what we were doing! After the markets, we were starving so…shamefully, we went to pizza hut. But, it was quite an experience. This place was a fancy, nice, sit down restaurant and the menus offered exquisite meals. It was my first ‘fast food American’ experience since before I left back in January and it was so good! We decided to go back to the ship and prepare for the night. We went to a restaurant and watched the final game of a big rugby tournament that was going on in Hong Kong. Rugby is huge all over the world and the fans are crazy. After the game we went to the ferry. This ferry runs every half hour and it takes you from one island over to the city of Hong Kong. We had some time to kill, so we waited outside the ferry and watched the ‘light show’ that the city puts on every night. All of the buildings put on a laser show around 8 pm every night and they play music, it was really cool. We went to some bars in Hong Kong and one of them had a license plate from INDIANA!! Can you believe it?! They don’t even have normal plates there! On our way back we ended up running in to the South African Rugby team that was in the finals of the game we were watching earlier. It was so interesting to talk to them especially because we could easily carry on a conversation because we had just been in South Africa. They were all very beautiful interesting men to say the least! Ha But we were in early because we all had very early flights to Beijing the next morning.
The next day I woke up and drove to the air port to go to Beijing. The flight was about 3-4 hours so it pretty much took up my entire day. However, as soon as we got off the plane, it was freezing!!!!!! It was about 35 degrees! But it was still really nice to not be in the heat! I went out to dinner later and then came back to my hotel and went to bed. Oh yeah, my bed by the way was just as hard as the floor, no joke.
The next morning we woke up and were divided into groups of 30. I ended up getting in a really great group and I think that is what partially made my trip so amazing. So before we went to the great wall, we stopped the Ming Tombs. The Ming Tombs are the resting place of 13 Chinese Emperors. We stopped at the Sacred Way, which was filled with willow trees and concrete statues of various animals. Then we went to the underground Ding Tomb, which was obviously underground and was filled with tombs and the emperor’s thrones. After these, we drove to the Great Wall of China! It was NOTHING like I expected. The wall is not well preserved and it is an intense hike. We stayed here and watched the sunset for a couple of hours. The view was breathtaking. I could see miles and miles of the great wall and I was completely surrounded by endless mountains. I it was so insane to actually see this phenomenon. Generally, the great wall is on the top brink of all the mountain tops. With that being said, the great wall is very steep and is covered in degrading steps that hardly exist. After the sun set, we went to dinner and then we pilled on the clothes. We pilled on the clothes because we slept on the great wall. There were five groups of 30 people and each group was assigned to a tower and my group was assigned to the last tower so I had to hike for about an hour before I even reached my sleeping destination. I am fortunate for that because it made me break out a little sweat, which actually kept me warm! But although the temperature was only about 15 degrees, it was so amazing. They provided us with sleeping bags, yoga-type mats, snacks, water, and lots of beer! Let’s just say the liquor layer was needed to get through the night. And I did sleep like a baby!
I woke up the next morning and I literally could not feel my feet. As the sun rose, we started packing up all of our stuff. At 7 in the morning, I started the 6 mile hike that I had planned for that day. This hike was nothing like I imagined. The stairs were so steep that I had to crawl up them and some of the stairs were half my height. It was a blessing when there were actually stairs and not crumbles that we had to go over. We had to pass through 30 towers and after the first 5 I wanted to give up because I was still freezing, slightly hung-over, and my knees were killing me. But I honestly had no choice, I was in the middle of nowhere in between China and Mongolia and I had to continue on. We eventually started telling stories to keep all of our minds off of the hike and it actually worked. But I finally saw the end of my trek when I saw the zip line. Can you believe it?? All I could think about was going on the zip line, the thing I feared so much two months ago. It was awesome and I was able to go with one of my friends, which was really fun. After this hike, we ate lunch and headed to the site of the Olympics. Unfortunately, I was unable to go inside any of the buildings, but I stood outside the Birds Nest and the Water Cube. I was insane to see these buildings in real life. While watching the Olympics a few months ago, all I could think about was getting to see these buildings and I actually got to see them! They were huge and the entire area was really cool. I tried to walk all around it in hopes that Michael Phelps and I stepped in the same spot. I bet we did. Ha! We left there and we went to the six story silk market that was filled with fake stuff. It was unreal and these people were pushy! But it was really cool to see how many of these people did their business. We went back to the hotel and went to bed…again on my brick. (Honestly, sleeping on the great wall was more comfortable than sleeping on these beds!)
The next day we went on an hour rick-shaw ride. (These are bicycle driven carriages that are all over Asia.) These were so comfortable! We went to the bell tower in old Beijing, we visited a local’s home and learned about how their lifestyles are, and we visited a kindergarten. At the bell tower, we had to hike up about 150 stairs (Lord, the Chinese and their stairs!!), but we could see the entire city! It was beautiful! And the kindergarten kids were so cute. The toys they play with are so different from what American children play with. We then went to Tiananmen Square, which is the large plaza near the center of Beijing and it literally means Gate of Heavenly Peace. It is the site of several key events in Chinese history, including the massacre in 1989. Ironic? We then crossed the street and went to the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace built in the Ming Dynasty. For almost five centuries, it served as the home of the Emperor and his household, as well as the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government. We then went to the Summer Palace. It was covered in beautiful trees and rocks that both grow wildly out of the ground. And although it was freezing, the lakeside view was breathtaking. After relaxing there for awhile, we headed towards the train station. We boarded your ‘not so average’ train…it was a sleeper train. There were hundreds of cabins that each held 4 beds (2 bunk-beds) and a small table. It was sort of Harry Potter Hogwarts style! It was the most interesting thing I have ever done! So I went to sleep in Beijing and I woke up in Shanghai!!
The next day I went back to the ship, dropped off my bags, and went to explore the city of Shanghai! We were exhausted so we didn’t do much but it was nice to just roam. We went to a market and a young man named Victor escorted us. He came up to us and said he would help us shop and we just kind of brushed it off and tried to escape him. But, he ended up being such a great help. We lost him for about 5 minutes and within those five minutes we were attacked by at least 10 pushy Asians that were trying to get you to come to their store. Victor saw us in trouble and helped us out. He didn’t want anything from us: nothing from his store, no money as a tip, just simply conversation. It seemed so strange that a person would be so nice as to walk us around this Market for half the day, but that was all he did. I went back to the ship after a few hours because I was exhausted.
China was such an amazing experience and I was not expecting to have as amazing of a time as I had. Seeing the Olympic sights, sunrise & sunset on the great wall, sleeping on the great wall, climbing the great wall, zip-lining, and best of all being emerged in a culture that was so different from anything I have ever seen. There are no toilets, just porcelain holes in the ground. There is no concept of a line whatsoever and the people can be insanely pushy and rude. You never really actually know what you are eating. I was freezing nearly the entire time. And it was really tough to do nearly anything because hardly anyone spoke English. But despite all of that, I loved this country. I would definitely visit this country again and do many of the same things I did this past week.
