T I C ?

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Well sorry that it has been ages since I have been able to blog. China lets just say is not the most internet friendly place to be. (We searched for internet all over the place and could not find any that was cheap.) Or should I say that it is the worst English Friendly place to be. The quote for our 72 hour sprint through China was that it was in fact "This is China, or T I C."Driving in China is an expereince. Basically the driver with the biggest horn wins in traffic. There were many times I was positive that I saw my life flash before my eyes, literally! It was a mad house of driving and walking across streets. I never thought that I would say this, but I have a new found respect for the throne toilets that there are in every other country that I have visited outside of the US. "squatters" that are commonly referred to in China are not the best because they are a hole in the ground and sometimes there are flushes and sometimes there are not, the constant smell of ammonia is at times overwhelming. The other problem that we encountered was that the cabs in Beijing do not speak any English. NONE! It was really fun to say something and they look at you like you are crazy or something. It was a riot! Mike finally bought a map that was in English and Chinese which helped in the navigation through the town when we weren't with Corey's friends. But aside from these hiccups, here is the adventure that we had while there. Last wednesday we boarded a ferry bound for the city of Weihai, china from Seoul, Incheon, Korea. The ferry was awesome. It was so nice and clean and neat and tidy. We had a blast on this trip. The 24 hours spent felt like 2. There was a tv with cable and Mike and I were able to watch the world championships in track while crossing the yellow sea. The back of the ferry was fun to pass the time and meet people. We met two men, Steve from the UK and Jon from New Zealand, all Beijing bound. Once we got into Weihai, it was crazy. The first second out of the terminal we had bums surround us begging for money. Jon actually had one bum drop to the ground in front of him and then grab his money belt around his waist. NUTS! We quickly got a cab and motioned to him to go to the train station. Thank God mike had a Chinese book with him, otherwise I think we would have been going around in circles of the town! Once there we were informed that the train tickets were sold out until Sept. 5! Which is tommorrow for me now! Blah! So we sat there for a min. to regroup and figure out the next step. Jon was approached by a girl who spoke english and helped us to the bus station. Jon bought her ticket from the station and she took us to the bus depot to get tickets. We had no problem with getting tickets on the bus due for departure in 1 hour. None of us had cash to buy the tickets, but jon spotted us and we hoofed it to the nearest atm to pay him back. Steve offered to sit with the bags while we left, so we bolted to the atm and paid jon back. We went back to the station got on the bus and took off on a 18 hour bus ride to beijing. the ride itself was amazing. I slepted for all but maybe three hours of the trip because the seats were long beds that were double decked. Not safe in the US but once again TIC. The one problem was that we had a 30 min. bus stop that had the worst, and I mean it THE WORST bathrooms on the planet. I walked in there and almost turned around and went beside the bus! I do not want to taint you with the details, but trust me if a rest stop ever seems really bad to you or sketch, IT IS NOT, this one was much much worse! Anyways, after this ordeal we boarded the bus slept and arrived in beijing around 6am. It was so unusual because the driver did not inform us we had arrived, he just got off the bus. Corey even woke up and asked us if we were there or not! To funny!
Once in beijing we all got into a cab and rolled over to the train station. The cab was so packed that the trunk light kept going off saying that it was open. Of course, my bag was on top, so for about 25 min, I was convinced that it was going to be left on the streets of beijing. It was classic. We arrived at the train station on Friday morning in search of our tickets. We could not find the foriegn ticket office, so we gave up and went to the mcdonalds across the street for breakfast. After this was done we went back to the station and parted ways with steve. after a while of waiting and looking for the station we instead concluded that we should go to a travel agency. Corey went and asked for directions and we went to the agency between the two nicest hotels in beijing. Once at the hotels we could not find the travel agency so while asking for directions we all used the bathroom in the nicest bathrooms in china. I must say that it was going from below the worst possible to 5 star. A nice change! Once we found the agency we got our tickets for mongolia and then went back to the station to call corey's friend morgan for directions to the hotel. We could not get a hold of him so we locked up our bags and went to the forbidden city and tiananmen square. Both of these places are absolutely awesome to see. it was fun to walk around and be a tourist, they are doing lots and lots of renovations at both places for the Olympics, so it was cool to see the changes. after we walked around we met two girls, one was Candy, who later got us a tour to the Great Wall and the other was Lucy an art student selling her art. Both Mike and I bought a piece of her art for really reasonable prices while looking in the students gallery. They were so beautiful and I could not believe that amount of time that was put into the art. once we were finished with these places, we walked back to the train station and called Morgan. He came about 3 hours later, (got stuck in traffic), and we finally got to the hotel around 8pm. After we were checked in (the hotel had no one who spoke english, morgan had to help translate) we had dinner next door and I had my first lamb kabob. It was so good. I have a new favorite meat I think because in China it was wonderful! ONce done with dinner, Morgan left and Mike, Corey, and I went on a small walk and then back to the hotel. We finally went to bed late Friday night.
Saturday
We woke up late so our plans for the day were a little out of wack. We went to the temple of heaven, which in my opinion it the first place anyone should visit in China! It was peaceful, happy, and beautiful! So many people were playing music and singing Chinese songs. The artwork was fantastic! After this we went back to the train station and book the tour with Candy to the Great Wall of China. Once this was done, we met up with Morgan and his friends Jane and William to have a true beijing feist. We had noodles, lamb, potato with vinager, wine, beer, salad, broiled peanuts, fish. It was a fiest and a good one at that! Jane is amazing, she is from beijing and very proud of it, so the culture that we saw and learned from her was awesome! It made the hectic three days prior just disappear because it was so fantastic. After dinner we went to a rowdy part of town to walk around and be out and about.
Sunday
This was the Great Wall day
We did the 10km hike that is one of the more tough excursions one can do in China. Trust me I was missing stadiums with 35 lb seals on my back after that hike. My butt and quads were left somewhere on the great wall because it was really tough. We started the day with Cherry our tour guide, and went to the jade palace. We learned how the jewelry was made and then all three of us bought rings. very lord of the rings style, but it was to signify the trip. after this we went to jisanling to start the hike. To sum up the trip, the view was breath taking everything that people say it is. It is not a touristy place, so there were a lot of farmers there following the people hiking, but not a lot of people hiking. The hike itself was tough but totally worth it. it was about 3 1/2 hours and half way through we had to pay again and then once more before we got off of the hike. Three lady farmers followed us as we hiked and once I tripped, one of them grabbed my arm and drug me up the rest of the way until the 12 tunnel (half way point and a border crossing). They were very sweet ladies and very nice and helpful. The only problem was that once we got to the end of thier area we were pounced on to buy something for them. These people hike this part of the wall everyday to get money from tourist and that is thier income for the day! It was sad, and scary on the same note because there were so many of them. I did buy a book from the lady who kept helping me because of her kindness. (The book was really cheap and totally worth it.) I really got a sense of poverty in China especially at the wall. So many people would take your water bottles after you finished with them so that they could fill them up with water freeze them and sell them to people who were hiking on the wall. It was nuts. We finished the hike and left with Candy and the driver (who drives like he is on a video game) to a tea house to sample tea. After this we had a Pekking Duck dinner with Corey's friends that was fantastic! Oh my god it was amazing, the duck literally melted in my mouth it was that good! After dinner we met up with another one of Corey's friends at a bar. We then went back to the motel, packed and slept until our early morning train ride snuck up on us.
Yes we did make it to Mongolia!

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