First blog in a while...

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Haven't updated since the final day in Shanghai and quite a bit has happened since then. On the next day in Shanghai, Janet and I decided to walk to the museum in Shanghai, since it was apparently quite famous. We started walking and got a little lost in the streets, and then rerouted ourselves and decided to stop for lunch at this little Chinese food chain fast food restaurant, where we had many delicious dumplings. It was awesome. When we left the dumpling restaurant, we promptly became lost once more and eventually asked a bell-boy at a hotel, who sent us in the right direction.

We eventually arrived at the museum (which was very awesomely free entry) and spent four hours exploring it. We bumped into Kath, Michael, Danielle, Svein, who did the museum in a much shorter period of time. We found out later that pretty much everyone in the group went to the museum at some point that day. The museum was a great time, and there were some coins that I became far too interested in. I can't really upload photos here, but I literally have about 1500 photos that I'm going to have to pick through at some point or another. There was some beautiful Buddhist statues and carvings. What made that more interesting was that there was this little pack of about twelve year old monks wandering around the exhibit in robes and with fancy cameras. Later Dragon told us that some schools had that as a type of uniform (near Tibet?) but at the time I was pretty excited. We walked back along this famous shopping street or something and bought Kath a birthday present (English tea, biscuits, chocolate and similar stuff to help with homesickness).

Oh, yes. We also went out to a bar on one of the nights in Shanghai, and had a few drinks (I tried half a corona, and beer still tastes like urine). There was a congo line created around the bar at some point which I was not responsible for. It was all pretty fun though. I caught a cab back with Hannah and Jill earlier than most of the others, but that was still 3:30am. Apparently they closed the bar after our group left.

We left Shanghai quite late (about 8:00pm), and had a fairly nice dinner before we left. The train was pretty decent and me and Jill grabbed the top bunks as per habit (I'd only had the middle bunk once before). We arrived in Beijing the next day and had the most insane taxi ride in existence. He was a very angry man, and the Janet recognised quite a bit of what he was saying, since it was mostly swearing and all the mandarin words she knows are swears. We were lost and the traffic was bad and it was just a scene. We did end up being the first at the hotel, though, which was another whole hell of confusion as we tried to sort out if we were at the right building or not. It was the big green one I'd looked up online though, so that helped.

After we all settled into the hotel (which had the best slippers yet) we marched off to the Forbidden city to explore it in 2 hours. Which, I have to say, did not do it justice. We ran through that thing, not lingering anywhere, and still didn't see all of it. They were ushering the gates closed behind us. I wish I had a chance to spend more time there. It is very impressive. I can't begin to describe how absolutely huge the place was, and the beauty of the buildings and this amazing garden in the back. There was also a park out back I wanted to look around. I'm hoping I'll be able to see it tomorrow. I have to do all my shopping tomorrow though... (by the way, Louis Vuitton bags do not exist here. I'm sorry. I'll get you guys something else).

Anyway. That night we also had Peking duck, which was pretty good. At the restaurant they had a bird that said 'Ni Hua' so we all spent the nights looking like idiots as we whistled and talked at a bird. It was also Kath's birthday that night so we had a cake and this neat candle that exploded a little. She seemed to like her present, which was good.

We all sat and drank (I just had a sip of firewater, though. It tasted a little like tequila) and chatted in the lobby of the hotel that night, since we couldn't locate any bars in the area. What was really cool about that was that this acting troupe was staying in the hotel also, and one of the guys was from the same place in England that Hannah was from. She was pretty happy about that. Some of they stayed with us and they were all really nice. They were performing Shakespeare in the city, which I would have loved to see, but I forgot about it until the other day and I was to spend my last night here (tomorrow) eating Chinese food and hanging out with the people I've met. Anyway. Continuing.

The following day we went to the Great Wall (except Janet, who wasn't feeling too well). Everyone else was fairly hungover so we pretty much slept the two hour bus ride there. We went to the Mutianyu section of the wall, which had vendors along the walkway to the path up, and some selling water and food on the wall, but not enough to be very irritating at all. We walked up to the wall (which according to Ron, was just over a thousand steps) and then along the wall, which was a lot more steps. It was gorgeous, though. The views were amazing, and all these cherry blossom trees were just beginning to bud. I would love to see the Wall when all the flowers are in bloom. Even like this, it was amazing what was accomplished. It just goes on forever. I walked the whole section of it, though some people quit at the resting area and waited for us to come back. The last bit of stair was a bit hellish, but the view was worth it. When we were at the break between the restored bit and the unrestored bit, we saw some people trying to get through to our section and the guard wouldn't let him, which we couldn't really figure out. He sent them back. The walk back down the wall was tiring and my knees were definitely a bit shaky by the end. I bought Dad a hat that says "Great Wall" on it from one of the vendors on the was down. I bargained and everything, though I had to go to a few stalls before I managed to get a reasonable price (Dragon told me what I should pay for one of the hats).

We had a brief break back at the hotel after the wall before we took the bus into the south part of Beijing. We had a pretty good group meal and then we went to see this Kung Fu show, which was more like a play than a kung fu demonstration (which is what I was kind of expecting). The show was about an old monk who told the story to a young boy who was scared of becoming a monk about another young boy who was scared and faced obstacles and succeeded, and it turned out to be him (shock!). Anyway, it was pretty good and the kung fu itself was pretty impressive. I had to go to the washroom for the last half hour of it, though, so that dampened its excitement a little bit.

The following day, Bre, Danielle, and Hannah flew out (Bre and Danielle headed over to the Pearl market with us first, though) and Janet and I went to the Temple of Heaven, which was huge and beautiful too. There was this alley of people in the park playing music and dancing and there was this other area where they were all playing with these streamers. It was really neat. I was fairly tired from the giant hike up the Great Wall, though, so I probably didn't appreciate it as much as I should have. Met Janet's friend Jenny this day who was really nice and moved myself over to my hostel, which was creepy in the dark and pretty cold, but I shared the dorm with this friendly french woman. It wasn't creepy in the daylight and the lake and surrounding areas were quite lovely.

Charlie and Ron left the next day (I had said goodbye earlier) and I met Janet, Jenny, Kath, and Michael at the North Gate entrance to the Summer Palace, which turned out to be not the main entrance, so I had to run around the huge place to get to the entrance where I had to meet them. Even though I was late, it turns out everyone else had a difficult time getting there as well, and I was actually the first one to arrive. Everyone got there eventually, though, and we all went down into this little shop street in the palace and had a pot of Jasmine tea (it was the first cold day yet). After tea, we walked along the street, which was basically a sidewalk by the river, which was neat. It started to rain though, which was really icy rain that made us even colder. Kath and Michael bought ponchos, of which Michael's was a lovely shade of violet and Kath's was green.

After we left the street we wandered around the palace pretty blindly. There was this impressive Buddhist temple which we weren't allowed to take pictures inside of. The whole place was impressive, actually. It was enormous, and in the five hours we were there, we didn't even dent half of it. I wish I had more time in this city. We also had a quick lunch there. By the time we left, we were all freezing and ended up being caught in rush hour. It took us about two and a half hours to reach home, and the subway was actually a human traffic jam. It was pretty miserable, especially since at this point we were all very tired, cold, and hungry. We eventually did get back to the hotels, though, and dried off our clothes with a hairdryer as best we could and all met up for dinner again (Kath and Michael are in a hostel about a block away). Dinner was nice, and the bible (lonely planet recommended). I caught a cab back to my hostel, since Janet and Jenny were worried about me cabbing back so late at night. It was only $3 Canadian, though.

Today (I can't believe I finally got to this part...) we all met up again for the zoo (same five as the day before). It was cold again, but not rainy, and we were all actually dressed for the weather this time. The zoo itself was both big, interesting, and really, really sad. A lot of animal were in cages far, far too small for them. I can't remember ever going to an actual zoo before, so it was a little bit shocking, I guess. Some animals had an okay amount of space, but most didn't. These wolves in this tiny, muddy cage together broke my heart. And the elephant... It was neat to see the pandas and all the other animals though. The giraffe's had a big pen and this adorable little baby. There was one group of particularly enthusiastic monkeys that didn't look at all depressed, either. It was probably more sad than interesting, but I'm not going to go into too much details. I don't think I like zoos, though.

So, after the zoo, we all headed home, since it pretty much took the entire day. Jenny had to head back to her town that I can't remember the name of, but the rest of us went to Kath and Michael's hostel and had coffee, played cards, and then had dinner, since we were there for a while. It was really fun. We're going to meet up again tomorrow for the Lamma temple at 9:00am, and that's pretty much all of it. Wow. Should not leave this much space between entries, since this took quite a long time to type up. Now I think I'll head off to bed. I'll be heading for home on the plane five days from now, so I'll see you guys soon!

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Comments

[Mom]

Wow Jill, can't wait until your home and see your pics. Loved reading your blogs...see you soon