Beijing

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MARCH 27th--- (DAY 1)

Once I woke up and had breakfast I met up with my group to catch my flight to Beijing. The airport was huge! Literally over 450 terminals! You have to go down all these escalators in different directions in order to get to your gate. Once you found the right number on the bottom floor of the building, you got into this subway that took you to your terminal. It took really long and was really confusing. The good news was that I got to get lox on a bagel in the airport. Okay you can make fun of me…but it was amazing!

Anyway, after just making it to my gate (literally running in the airport), I got on a 2 hour flight. I thought it was cold in Hong Kong, but it was a whole different story in Beijing. I mean coming from my experience at home, it felt like a normal fall almost winter weather, but coming from 100 degree weather and not having warm clothing to wear, I literally couldn’t stop shaking. I thought immediately…okay, I need a scarf, gloves, hat and boots.

After getting on the bus and meeting our tour guide, David, we headed out to Old Beijing (Hutong). This is the area of Beijing that has not been transformed for hundreds of years. Once we got close to the village, we got out of the bus and in pairs of two got onto trishaws. They are kind of the same idea as the rickshaws from India, but they are a lot cleaner and instead of looking like an open door taxi, they are just bikes attached to a carriage (3 wheels). The ride through the village was amazing. The town looked like something out of a movie set. All the small houses (looked like they were made for tiny people) were side by side and were very old fashioned looking. The village itself is made up of narrow networks of lanes that go in every direction. The ride lasted about 20 minutes and we all had a lot of fun. Our driver was crazy and kept trying to race all of the other trishaws.

After we got out of our trishaws, we walked down one of the roads to a house that we were going to have dinner in. The woman who owned the home spoke no English but was really sweet! The house was around 100 years old! She showed us how to make homemade dumplings (otherwise known as jiaozi) and we each got to try to pinch one together….not as easy as it looks. We all ate family style and tried all of the food that her sister prepared. After we were finished eating, her husband came back from walking their dog and showed us his artwork. Apparently he is a famous artist from their town and is doing an exhibition this week. We all thanked her and then headed back to our trishaws outside. The ride back was insane because my driver went a little nuts and caused a 3 way collision with another trishaw and a motorcycle. It was fine though and no one got hurt! It was actually really fun to go fast down the streets and race all of the other carriages.

The bus then took us back to our hotel (Hilton Hotel---Temple of Heaven) to check in. Once we were all settled in, we decided to go to a night market. Night markets are a really great thing to do and see in China. It was definitely one of the highlights while I was there. They just have a good vibe and energy about them. You get to really see all the people, food and shops! It’s great! Anyways, we had plans to go to this huge market we had heard about eariler. We asked the man at the hotel for directions (b/c well Chinese symbols look like chicken scratch to me). Sadly, we ended up somewhere completely different than where we wanted to go, but it ended up being amazing! You enter the small village and see all of these shops, cafes and bars all surrounding this lake. Everything has lights on it (mostly Christmas style lights). The bars and cafes are really small too (they only have about 5 booths inside). It’s basically a hobbit town and I loved it! If you have ever been to Epcot and seen the China part of the world…this is what it looked like. I had to keep reminding myself that I was actually in real China and not Disney World!


MARCH 28th --- DAY 2:

Woke up and had breakfast in the hotel. First I visited the Forbidden City (Imperial Palace). It was home to 24 emperors and the entire complex consists of 8,706 rooms. Around 10,000 people lived there such as maids and concubines. It was huge and seemed like it went on forever. On my way out, there was a booth selling panda hats. These are basically stuffed animals for your head! These are a staple item for every tourist to have…so I figured I must buy one. As tacky as it is, I absolutely am in love with it. I think I wore it the whole day on the Great Wall and in almost all my pictures in Beijing. By the end of the day everyone had a panda hat, and we all wore them in the bus and took a group picture…it’s so funny looking.

After that, we went to see Tiananmen Square. We just sort of walked around for ten or twenty minutes.

After seeing both of the sights, we headed to a local restaurant for lunch. Following lunch we visited Guan’ai Migrant School in Shunyi. This is a boarding school that takes in orphans (ages 12 to 18). They take in any child no matter what the background story is. Some of them are there because their parents simply couldn’t afford to take care of them. Others are there, because their parents didn’t give them a proper home life (such as abuse, drugs, alcohol and other things like that)…these are the kids that came to the school on their own. It was really cool to see how this school gave children so many opportunities. The most impressive thing was the music room. They had a room filled with dozens of different instruments, and they were teaching all of the students how to play them. They performed for us and they were really good. We played some duets on the piano with them and they loved that. At first they were really shy and thought we were only there on the government’s behalf, but slowly they warmed up to us. The best part of the school visit was seeing this giant mural they have painted on one of the walls of the school. Last time the SAS trip came here they painted this mural with them. The MV Explorer was even drawn on it!

Next, we went to the Roast Duck Restaurant to try peeking duck. The way you eat it here is not what I expected. First you get these pancakes like tortillas. You put some sauce, cucumber and pieces of cut up duck inside and then wrap it up. It was soooo amazing! I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did. One of the appetizers was a duck wing in this jelly stuff….I tried it! It was actually not as bad as I thought it would be.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and then back again to another night market. This night market was the best one I went to Beijing. Sadly, they all close around 10 pm and I got there around 9:15. Oh well, it was still really fun to walk around. They had all the weird animals on a stick in stands. Some of the weirdest ones I saw were: starfish, seahorse, snakes, tarantula, scorpions and intestines. Pretty crazy stuff to watch people eat this kind of stuff! Some of the stuff you pick out when it is alive and then they kill and fry it in front of you, add some sauce, and you are good to go. I didn’t try anything, but some of my friends on the trip did and I was grossed out. The small winding streets were filled with tons of vendors, food stands and Chinese lanterns. Since it closed around 10, we decided to just walk the outside city streets and see what was open. A few stores were open and it was just fun to walk around. It was really cold at this point so we tried to go in as many stores as possible just to warm up. At one point I got to try these strawberries coated in sugar syrup on a stick from a man who was driving a bicycle. They were amazing and I’m so mad I didn’t find more of them the rest of the trip!

Around midnight I headed back to the hotel to get some sleep.

MARCH 29th--- DAY 3:


Breakfast again at the hotel…they served pancakes, eggs and cereals, but they also prepare wonton soup, dumplings, and duck…weird, but I still ate it for breakfast! After breakfast, we went to visit the International Kongfu School. They filmed the new karate kid movie there (if anyone has seen it). On the way there, we passed the Beijing Olympic Stadium and that was pretty cool looking. It’s cool to see things in person when you have only seen them on TV. Anyways, once we got there, we were led into an auditorium and watch a performance by some of the older students. It was insane; they were doing all these cartwheels, back flips and breaking stuff with just their index fingers and hands. After it was over, they took us to the outside and gave us a lesson. It was really fun.

The second part of the day we got to go to the Great Wall!!! This was definitely the highlight of the trip. It looks just like you think it would. We took a cable car up to the top and then hiked it for about an hour. The hike was actually really hard to do because all of the steps were uneven and misshaped. Also, a lot of areas were really steep both going up and going down. The view was absolutely incredible! Soooo cool! Anyways, once we finished our hike we got to toboggan down to the bottom.

After the great wall visit, we went to see an acrobatic show. To be honest, I was not really expecting this to be anything great, but I was really wrong! This was soooo cool! It was on the same level as circus sole. The tricks they did were insane. At one point they had 20 people on one bicycle and were doing back flips! After this was over we wanted to go to a restaurant. It took us soooo long to get a taxi. Everyone that passed us was full or didn’t want to take us. We walked down several blocks trying to get one from a different place in the city, but no lucky. I think it took us around 30 minutes to finally get one. Anyways we made it to a restaurant and then afterwards headed back to the hotel.

Since it was our last night, we all decided to go out to one of the bars and check out the nightlife. I was really excited since night life was so amazing in Hong Kong. First we went to this placed called Bar Street that everyone was talking about. It ended up just being very long street filled with side by side mini bars and restaurants. We ended up getting a table outside and just ordering some small plates of food and drinks. Some other people next to us told us to check out this place called Club Mix or something like that. We got into a taxi to go, but our driver ended up getting lost and took us somewhere different….what a shocker! We decided since we already paid we might as well check it out. This club was not something I was used to. There were dancers and reserved areas for sitting. The music was so loud I felt like my blood was shaking. Not to mention we had to pay all these fees for everything. In short, I wasn’t the happiest person there, so I decided to leave. A few people came with me, but the rest of the group decided to stay there for the rest of the night. I ended up getting back to the hotel and just passing out.


MARCH 30th---DAY 4:

Last day in Beijing! We were given two options; we could either go shopping or see the Temple of Heaven. I ended up going shopping, only because the Temple of Heaven was just like the Forbidden City they told us. Also, I’m sort of addicted to bargaining now. You get to act and pretend that you get better deals somewhere else and it is really fun! Once you get good at it, you can pretty much get anything you want for under $10….it’s amazing! I’m definitely glad I’m learning this skill….I can’t wait to try it out in the US.

They took us to a Bazaar (Silk Market). It was a giant 6 floor mall filled with nothing but vendors. Each floor was a different kind of item (for example, floor 2 was all pocketbooks and floor 4 was all clothing). It was insane and such a mess to walk through. People grab at you and try to pull you into their store. I ended up doing really well. For instance, I got a pair of tall Ugg boots for only $12. It’s funny because they call them Uggers. They can’t pronounce the “gs” sound here so things like eggs are called eggers. It’s really funny! This mall definitely had the best brand bargaining in China. I was so upset I only had 2 hours to look around.

Once we finished up, we got back in the bus and headed to the airport to catch our 2 hour flight to Shanghai. Once we arrived in Shanghai we had an hour bus ride to meet up with the ship. Driving through Shanghai at night was really something else. It looked like Vegas. There were sooo many lights and neon buildings and weird architecture. The whole city looks futuristic! Our ship is docked right in the middle of it all. My view from my cabin window is amazing! All these light up buildings that are crazy shapes.

Once we got on the ship, a few of us were ready to get off and go find some dinner and explore. The bad part was that the Chinese government wanted us to go through immigration. This meant that we had to give the Purser’s Desk our passport and wait about 2 hours for them to be processed. I was sooo pissed. It was already passed 7 and I was starving and wanted to just go see the city at night. At this point most of my friends were already off the ship and we had no way of finding them. Charli and I decided to just stick together and go find a restaurant and just walk around. We found an Italian restaurant that was amazing. It felt good to eat something besides Chinese food. I actually loved all the food I have had here and have not been sick once, but sometimes you just need to switch it up. This sounds so lame, but it was nice to not be bothered at a restaurant for once. I felt like I could actually relax. That is something I have seriously learned to appreciate from this trip. When we walked in they didn’t demand we place an order right away, they didn’t stand next to us while we were looking at the menu and while we were eating. Also, they gave us each a menu, not just one for the table (they always do that), or just give menus to the boys (they also do that too….weird!). It was just a nice change for once. I had spinach ravioli in a cream sauce and it was sooo good! I hadn’t had anything with cheese in so long! The only weird part was that when you get a glass of water, it was always served hot. Also, it is impolite to tip in China…which was sort of a plus for me!

After dinner, we had no idea what to do. We couldn’t find anyone and it was already pretty late. We found some place that had small desserts and we tried one, we also just walked around looked in some of the shops. I ended up buying this flower tea they have here. You put this bulb into hot water and all these flowers bloom in your tea! I can’t wait to try it out!

We decided to just head back to the ship, get some rest and figure out what to do tomorrow.

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