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Published: February 17th 2011
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The Wall
...what more do you need to know?Day 3: Beijing 1/22/2011
Keli and I got up around 6:30 this morning.. we made it to the hostel by 7:40. Pretty impressive... but we were supposed to be there at 7:30. No one was even there at the desk. Ridiculous. So we sat in the leaky common area and played with the cat there. FINALLY a worker came in her slippers and said that the driver would be there soon. We bought 2 cans of coke because we were both really thirsty.. they were 5 yuan each. crazy. The worker took us to the van. There was no Ryan.. which I was kind of sad about. Listen, she dragged her feet the WHOLE time she was walking. I wanted to yell "PICK UP YOUR FEET!!" but I didn't. ha.
We got in the van, and there were two ladies in the van.. one was from Australia, and the other was from Minnesota. They were friends. They were really nice. And then we picked up 2 boys and 2 girls. We didn't talk to them at all. The boy beside me was eating those instant noodles without any of the spices in them. Gross. He had to sit in
the little fold out seat beside me. I wasn't a fan of him the minute he got on the van. His English wasn't very good.. and he couldn't pronounce his Rs.. he made them sound like Ws. He said that the seat he was in was like a "wowwewcoastew" (rollercoaster.. he didn't do well with his Ls either.) He was driving me crazy.
While we were in the van, we got a text message from Billy (the guy who helped us get the hotel room). Apparently we didn't stay in the right hotel and we really screwed him up.. and then he ended it with "Thank you very much." We just couldn't get anything right. Keli said she felt nauseous (I didn't know how to spell that.. ha). We apologized and said we thought we were in the right place. He said he forgave us.. but it really bothered us. He seemed really angry and kinda mean in that first message.
So we got to the wall finally, and we were the only ones there. Really? We said we wanted to go to the tourist spot. And apparently they didn't listen to us when we said that. It
was a 10k walk. Ok.. not what I signed up for. We only walked part of it (luckily it was a 'walk 5k and then walk back' kinda thing). We took pictures with Keli's Glamour magazine and walked back down. Billy texted back and said that Keli had to give him 3 hugs and kisses when we got back. I was like, umm.. you better hug and kiss her back because you almost made both of us cry. He said he loved us more today than yesterday. We were both glad Ryan didn't come with us because we whined a whole lot, and we didn't walk very far on the wall. ha. Did I mention it snowed while we were on the wall? The grass was crazy crunchy as we walked down. (video included)
We went to lunch with the Great Wall group. The hostel sent a message to us saying that they couldn't get our tickets to Shanghai because it was too difficult. Great. One more thing to mess our trip up. The food was pretty good, and it was fun watching some of the group use chopsticks. haha. We learned that the boys were from Germany. One
The Overall Mood
This is Keli expressing how we were feeling right then. girl was from Canada. The other was Chinese and worked at the hostel she came from. The lunch conversation was interesting. The obnoxious German guy got ripped off by the tea people, so he said that he went back the next day and found them. He said he picked them both up off the ground, and they were scared. He said the people gave him some of his money back, and he said he stole a tea cup. We didn't really believe the whole story.. I mean, he was a toothpick. I'm not sure he could have picked two people up off the ground. He said, he was vewy stwong and he made fitness for 10 years. The lady from Minnesota CRACKED UP when he said that. We all did. And we told him he should say that he had been working out or something. The Canadian girl got scammed too, but she bought a painting. She talked a whole whole lot too.
Keli and I got dropped off at a different hostel.. with the girls from MN and Australia. Keli finally got money put on her phone. We walked and took pictures in front of the Forbidden City.
The Overall Mood
This is me expressing how we were feeling right then. Then we went back to the mall where Starbucks was. We found Subway and ate there. We got BMTs and cookies. Yumm-o. Keli got some coffee. I decided I didn't need any because that put me over the edge of fullness the night before. We went to the bathroom.. and we had to walk through this crazy maze (video included). Keli found Beard Papa.. which is a pastry place that she likes, and we found Burger King!
Keli talked to her ex boyfriend's friend, Brad. He said we could stay with him the next night so we wouldn't have to sneak me in anymore. We asked him what he thought about train tickets, and he said that we could probably go in the morning and get them. We decided we would just go then so that we could get it done and not have to get up early. We got there and stood in line for like a minute. We got tickets for the 24th. The only thing we didn't know was if we got hard or soft sleepers. Easy as pie.
So we went back to our hotel for the night. Keli had to get our room
The Overall Mood
And this is us together expressing how we were feeling right then. key reactivated, and she made me hide upstairs! ha. She said the girl at the desk handed her a note.. it said something about how they charged her too much. She said she was afraid it was going to say something like, we know what you did. you're kicked out of this hotel. haha. We went in the room, and Keli took a shower. We talked for a little while. We talked to Ryan, and he said that we could keep our stuff in his room the next day after we checked out of the hotel since we weren't meeting Brad until like 8:30 or something. And then we went to sleep.
Day 4: Beijing 1/23/2011
I woke up at 10 and got a shower and packed up. Keli got up after I showered and packed. We headed downstairs at 12:02.. check out was 12. It was okay though. I hid in the bathroom while Keli checked us out. haha But I made it out without getting caught.
We went to the hostel and chatted with Ryan and a British guy for a while. Ryan had planned on going to some snowboarding thing, but he didn't feel
The Wall
Trying to smile.. good.. I was pretty glad to see him. 😊 ha
Anyway, Keli and I went to Burger King for lunch. She wanted a long chicken sandwich, but they didn't have them, so we both just ate regular chicken sandwiches.
We went back out to the walking street and went to a foreign bookstore. Before we went in though, we saw this guy in armor marching in front of a store. There was also a guy in a robe. ha (video included) We spent a really long time in there just looking at books. There's nowhere in Shiyan to buy books in English, so we cherished the experience. ha. Keli bought 4 books and a map.. the map was of Beijing. I found it and thought it was really cool because it was pop up.. Keli bought it. I bought 2 books.
After the bookstore we went back to that cute little street we found and were going to eat scorpions on a stick, but we chickened out at the last minute.. so we went to this random little glass encased place in the middle of the walking street and drank some cokes.
We headed back to
The Wall
The sun in the background was really gorgeous.. the hostel to get our stuff from Ryan's room. He was there. He hadn't left all day. ha. We took a picture with him.. mostly because I was like, Keli, we HAVE to take a picture with him.. he's soooo cute! (watch him find this and read it and think I'm creepy.)
We took the metro to meet Brad. We were a little late.. he wasn't at our designated meeting place when we got there, but he called and said he was across the street. He ran out of money on his phone, so he didn't get our message about being late. Oops. He got there (he was a cutie too) and took us to his apartment.
His apartment was in this hutong (alley) that was kiiiinda creepy. His apartment was really small, and it had some INSANELY steep stairs. I'm pretty sure I had to work really hard to get up them with all my stuff. ha. We were in his extra room that was CRAZY cold.. but his whole apartment was pretty cold.
We went to dinner. We ate at a place that served Yunnan food, and it was REALLY good. We had some different
The Wall
It. Was. Freezing. stuff.. pork, cucumbers.. my favorite thing was the potatoes. They were basically hashbrowns. They were soooooo good. Brad told us that he had a friend who wanted to meet up with us, so we didn't go back to his apartment just yet.
We headed to this tiny little bar that had 2 picnic tables. That's it. It was crazy small. Elvis's gospel songs were playing when we walked in. I thought it was funny. We talked and hung out. His friend was really really weird. He actually seemed kind of drunk when he came in. He wouldn't look at Keli at all, and he kept interrupting us with dumb comments. He didn't make a good impression on me. Keli and I both went to the bathroom.. that was outside. We went twice. The second time was just for Keli, but I probably could have gone again. ha. The smell wasn't awful, but it kinda shocked me when I walked in. I made Keli laugh a lot.. in fact, she almost didn't make it to the squatty. ha.
We left after we got back from the bathroom the second time. Brad's friend didn't even say anything to us when
The Wall
Keli's artistic capture..
he left. I realized at that point that I didn't have my gloves, so I figured I just lost them. I mentioned that I didn't know where my gloves were, and Brad gave me his! 😊 I was like, No, that's okay.. but he kept shoving them at me. He was REALLY nice. And the gloves smelled sooooo good. ha
I made it back to his apartment to use the bathroom. It was under the stairs.. like Harry Potter's closet under the stairs. For real. It was so small.. and it was a squatty. Nice. It was clean though.. thank goodness. Keli turned on every possible heat giving device, and I made sure to tell Brad thank you again. He was for real precious sweet. Keli and I snuggled and went to sleep.
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DON KEITH
non-member comment
Re your Tour Day one
Thanks for the tour and pictures. Musn't be too critical of the boy that couldn' pronounce his "R's"and had dificulty with "L's". How are you doing with the Chineese alphabet? I'm having fun learning some conversational Spanish one hour per week at N.Y. Ave.