February 28th (writing on March 1st)
Okay so I left off at the airport in South Korea as I was drinking my wonderful smoothie..
The flight was an hour across the sea to Weihai where we landed on a runway surrounded by soldier scarecrows. Apparently Weihai is a pretty major military district so there were plenty of intimidating men in uniform watching us.
I had the great fortune of having all of my luggage make it all the way to China without even being damaged and without having to pay any extra fees. See? Miracles happen.
From the airport we took a bus to our school along a very long scenic route and I've already made a mental list of a few places I want to go back to and get some pictures. There was a really beautiful giant statue of two hands holding a picture frame that framed the ocean in the background. Gorgeous.
The bus driver was nice enough to drive up a back road at the school that eliminated a few flights of stairs but I still got to carry my 100+ pounds of luggage up 7 flights of stairs. I was very excited about the idea of this being only a one time occurrence. We spent a couple hours unpacking and getting some sense of stability for a moment in our lives before we headed downtown with the help of our China liaison, Kaili (pronounced Kelly). Pause. While we were getting settled in our rooms apparently everyone else's rooms weren't quite as cleaned up as mine and Melanie's was so the boys found a box of "matches" and decided to light one. One loud explosion later determined it was actually a firecracker that lights like a match. Talon (yes, we really have a guy in our group named that) got the explosion in the eye and got pieces of the firecracker in his eye that had to be washed out and remained closed the rest of the day. Poor kid- what a way to start out a trip to China.
We caught a bus downtown and stopped at the ATM where I was laughing so much at the computer's English failure that I stopped to take a picture which resulted in me having to start the process all over again. Totally worth it. "Please protect your PIN when you use bank card, and prevented others from peeking it." :) It took forever for everyone to take cash out and while we were waiting Geoff bought these treats off of a street vendor. I can't remember what they're called but it was a small apple with a candy coating and sesame seeds. Everyone else thought they were disgusting but I didn't think they were too bad. For dinner we went to the Hot Pot which they mis-titled as Hop Pot. It was kinda a strange Chinese version of the Melting Pot (or at least what I have always imagined the Melting Pot to be) and was decent food. The Chinese kept laughing at us because we weren't eating it correctly between the process of cooking it, dipping it, and adding toppings but at that point I really didn't care. After dinner we went to the Xiaxiayua (that's my best guess at the spelling) which is pronounced Jua jua youa (just think of Jar jar binks) where we picked up a few supplies like toilet paper (which you only get to use here if you bring it yourself) and air freshener to calm the smell of mildew-ish poo in our rooms. I attempted to buy some shampoo but couldn't figure out the difference in bottles between body wash, shampoo, and conditioner. We caught rides back in these "cars" that look like motorized adult tricycles with a car shell on it. It only cost 5 yuen for two of us which isn't even a dollar in the U.S. (6 yuen to a dollar). As long as you're not shopping unwisely on the streets stuff is pretty cheap here. 1 yuen for the bus, 1 yuen for the water bottle I bought tonight... it's great.
Back at the dorms we discovered the room that the old ILP volunteers had left a bunch of stuff in. This means I now have shampoo, conditioner, body wash, trash bags, more hand sanitizer, shaving cream.. it's fantastic. I didn't even need to bring toiletries at all apparently because that room is loaded. By that point in the night I felt pretty grimy so I braved the shower. It only took me 5 minutes to figure out how to turn it on and then another few to convince myself I wanted to be clean more than I wanted to stay out of that ice cold water. I found out later that somehow I was the only one who hadn't gotten a hot water. Lame.
We had a quick meeting in which they went over the ILP rules. Again. My free-spirited ASU lifestyle is becoming increasingly obvious to me as I have rules laid upon me like having to always go somewhere with 1 other person, 2 if they are of the opposite sex, staying out of the opposite sex's room after 10:30 on weeknight and 12 on the weekends, room checks every month to make sure we're keeping things clean... let's just say it didn't leave me in the most accepting of attitudes so instead of pouting over it I went and packed my thing again because SURPRISE!! we were leaving for a 4-day trip to Beijing in at 5 the next morning!! Don't get me wrong, I am super excited to currently be in Beijing. I am happy I get to travel with my whole group and don't have to plan things out and am paying way less than I would on my own. However, I wish I could have had more than a 5-minute heads up and had a few extra hours to not be traveling and get some sleep that I've been so desperately missing this past week. After repacking the suitcase I had just emptied, I laid down in my wonderful bed (wonderful because I bought my fantastic ground pad and had first pick at the bedding) and was out within seconds.
Which brings me to today.
March 1st.
I started off my day at 4:15 am to the sound of my roommate's alarm. You know how sometimes you sleep in a new place and that first moment you wake up you're utterly confused as to your location? That definitely happened. I quickly got ready and headed down the 12-ish flights of stairs to the wonderful charter bus that was waiting for us. The first two hours there was a group of us talking in the back and we kept getting shushed by someone a few rows up which I had absolutely no patience for and it took all of my control to not stand up and ask who was shushing and slap them on the back of the head. (I'll just leave you with that edited version). We stopped at a convenience store for breakfast and bought an assortment of packaged Chinese foods. I ended up with dried pineapple, dried sweet potato strips, strawberry yogurt-ish Twinkie looking things, and a loaf of bread that turned out to be a life saver today. We all passed around what we had got and I discovered that some things are really delicious and other are not so much. My favorite were Oreos with a birthday cake flavored filling. I'll definitely be looking for some more of those to bring home in my suitcase.
The next leg of the journey was filled with games of Never Have I Ever, Black Magic, and riddles which were all highly entertaining. Our next stopped I finally saw and used a squatter for the first time. I started choking on the smell when I walked in but other than that and me seeing a couple women not even bothering to shut the door while they revealed their privates to the world, it wasn't so bad. Before we left that store a few of the ILP kids challenged a Chinese guy to some ping pong and all failed miserably. They're
(Continued on March 2nd.. My battery died last night)
… really good at ping pong here. At the store Mark bought a packaged chicken food and he and Sarah tried it on the bus. I almost threw up in my mouth just looking at it. I might be able to handle a crispy looking one but this one was gelatin-ey. You do find some pretty cool food and other things here with great names like toilet paper called Happiness and potato chips called Potato Wish.
We hit a point in driving when we came to a complete stop and guys started getting out of their cars and smoking and peeing and socializing with other drivers around them. Kinda interesting difference but hey you might as well because we sat there for about half an hour waiting for them to clear a crash off the road.
When we got to Beijing we met our tour guide for this trip named Carl. He's super funny and entertaining and I can actually understand what he's saying most of the time. He kind of freaked us out a first when he started talking down everything we were about to do. He warned us about how horrible the hotel was going to be and how we wouldn't like breakfast in the morning. He did give us the choice of going to a restaurant for dinner that was $6 more than our budgeted $2 meal and we took up that offer because we were all starving after having lived off of packaged sugar all day. The restaurant was at the Rich Hotel and the food was incredible which was much appreciated. Afterwards we headed back to the hotel and I took a wonderful hot (yay!!) shower and wrote a little bit and then crashed for the most amazing 8.5 hours of sleep I've had in a very long time.
March 2nd
(Written on March 4th)
We started the day off with breakfast at 8 and were out the door by 8:30. Hooray for sleeping in!! I hadn't had the luxury of getting out of bed after 4:30 for a few days and it was wonderful. Breakfast was boiled eggs, rice porridge, boiled bread, and a few weird pickled toppings that we mostly avoided.
Carl took us to Tainamen (misspelled, I'm sure) Square where we walked by Mao's Memorial and got our first real dose of Asians staring at us and taking pictures of us both with our consent and not. Lol the best is when you're standing there and realize there's someone standing two feet away from you who is trying, and succeeding at, getting their picture with you without you noticing.
After the square we headed to the Forbidden City which, stupid me, did not realize was the same place they based the end of Mulan off of. It was incredible how you'd go through one courtyard and think it was the end and then there would be another huge area surrounded by building. In China, the number 9 is important because (I believe) it symbolizes almost perfection so the Forbidden City has 99,999 rooms and all the main doors have 9x9 golden nobs on them. It's incredible how much work and thought went into this place. Apparently for lunch each day the Emperor had 3 tables set with 128 dishes each. 1 table for a eunuch to sample to make sure the food wasn't poisoned, one table for the emperor to eat, and 1 table to look pretty. Later in the evening Carl told us about the Emperor's concubines on the bus and it was mind blowing to discover some of what went on in China. The Emperor had 3000 concubines and death was their only exit from the Forbidden City. Apparently thousands of girls and their families would bribe others to get themselves in. They had to go through a month or two of different inspections, checking their body odor, height, weight, softness of skin, manners.. And after this 15 minute story about all of this I realized that the beginning of Mulan is probably a window into this world of Chinese women.
After the square was lunch which was actually pretty decent. Mom, you never thought I'd say this but the eggplant was the best. I could eat rice and eggplant here every day for a meal and be totally satisfied. They even made french fries for us and there was a loud shriek of delight from the entire group when they put them on the table. I like the food here better than most people but I really really miss being able to sit down and eat a plate of food that doesn't make me spit some of it back out on the table and give me the constant fear that I'm going to need to be within close radius of a squatter or trash can for the next 24 hours.
After lunch was the silk factory where we learned the growth cycle of silk worms and how they harvest the silk. I guess I always assumed that silkworms spit out silk kinda like spiders and didn't realize that people actually get the silk from the cocoons. They soak these little pigeon egg sized cocoons in water and dump out the dead worms and stretch the silk over a board in one quick motion. I'm really not a huge fan of silk because everything seems to catch on it and it doesn't stay warm if you move but it was cool to see how it was made and spend half an hour walking around touching all the merchandise. Oh! And guess what? The Chinese use silk worm poop for tea and they sew it into pillows because it is supposedly healthy for you to breathe in. Weird.
The next stop after the silk factory was the Summer Palace. The palace itself wasn't what was exciting (I actually don't even remember if we saw it) but the landscape was gorgeous. Carl had us all line up and hold on to the person in front of us and walk with our eyes closed so that when we saw the lake for the first time it would be a surprise. I'm sure we looked like idiots and the Chinese got a good laugh out of it but it was really fun. The lake was frozen (yes! I've finally seen frozen bodies of water here and lots of them) so there were a bunch of people walking across the lake on the opposite side we were on and it kinda felt like I was watching a pioneer reenactment.
After the Summer Palace was the Pearl Factory. They raise fresh water pearls in the lake by the palace and inject seed into the clam's muscle so instead of getting maybe one pearl like ocean clams they get about 20. Our tour guide there was named Mandy and looked Chinese but acted black or islander which was fantastically amusing. Maybe that's who she learned English from.
Dinner was a $2/person ghetto meal that even Carl wouldn't eat and told us not to eat the meat because he didn't know if it was going to make us sick or not. I ate everything and it was pretty darn good. And guess who still hasn't gotten sick? That's right.. this girl.
On the drive home we passed where they had the Olympics in 2008 and the Cube and Birds Nest were lit up which looked pretty cool. We also drove past what they call the Egg which is this giant circular building that the use for the arts like opera performances.
Back at the hotel I got a wonderfully hot shower in our dirty little room and headed straight to bed. Around 1:30 in the morning I woke up to someone opening our door and then shutting it a few seconds later. I wasn't sure if it was our door or someone else's because the walls are so thin but in the morning Melanie confirmed that she had seen the shadow of someone on the wall. We told Carl about it and he said something about them thinking that we were prostitutes. The next night we made sure that in addition to depending on the doom key lock we bolted our door down and discovered the lock was broken so we wedged the chair up under the handle and shoved some stuff under the door to try and block it.
March 3rd
(written on March 4th)
That morning we had the same breakfast but they also gave us sugar! It's amazing how you take the smallest thing for granted in the USA. I would have given so much for some salt and cinnamon so sugar was a heaven send.
We started the day off at the Jade Factory which is one of the stops I was really excited for on our trip to Beijing. I love jade. I think it is beautiful in so many ways-- how it forms, the different variations depending on chemicals, the lucky/healthy traditions behind it, the fact that it needs the oil of human skin to survive and gets darker the longer you wear it.. They had some really nice pieces when we walked in and one was a ship about 5 feet tall and 8 feet long. I checked the price and when I am rich and have an extra $65,000 +shipping fees to pay for it, it is going in my house. Jade was one of the main things I knew I wanted to spend money on in China so I dropped a fair amount of money there and left with a simple but pretty necklace for myself and a gift.
Next stop-- The Great Wall! Did you know that that name doesn't have Chinese origin but American? Apparently it got that title from Nixon. Odd fact for you. We climbed over 1000 stairs to the highest point where we were at and by the end you could easily see my legs shaking. My legs hardly ever get sore but I woke up feeling a little bit of tension in them and almost tripped walking down the stairs from breakfast. China isn't the warmest place in the world right now so I keep my super warm coat on almost all the time because few places have heating. I made the mistake of choosing to take my coat with me on the climb and had it off within the first 2 minutes but it was really nice to be wearing just a t-shirt again. When you're driving up to the wall you're traveling through mountains and then suddenly you just see this bold line of wall standing out in front of you. It's rather picturesque. I've now checked 3/7 world wonders off of my list so watch our world I'm ready to check off a couple more. (Fingers crossed the next 2 are Machu Pichu (don't laugh if I spelled that wrong because I haven't had the luck of internet access for a few days to check those types of things) and the Iguazua Falls in Argentina/Brazil.
We had lunch at the ghetto restaurant again and I ended up sitting at the table with all girls so I got to eat all of the meat off the table and didn't have to share with the boys. Woohoo! Still didn't get sick. Hope that sort of health keeps working.
After lunch was what Carl calls the Fake Market. It reminded me of the black market in Mexico but far less ghetto. I spent more than I was intending there but when I got back to the hotel and looked over everything I had bought again I only felt a little bit of remorse for one item and that's only because I wish I hadn't paid that much. Other than gifts which I won't reveal because that's no fun, I picked up a pair of Converse high tops for 40 yuen ($6.67), 2 scarves ($7 for both), an adaptor (Yay!! Now I can charge my laptop!) for 15 yuen ($2.50) which totally beats the $25 they wanted in the U.S., and probably what will be my most prized possession from China-- a generation ball. It's fake (of course) but is made out of jade (fake, remember) and it a sphere with 9 other spheres inside of it. I'm not really sure how to describe it so I'll try to find a link for you or you can use your wonderful ability to access Google at home and look it up yourself.
I grabbed a 9 yuen ($1.50) chicken sandwich at Mcdonalds before we got on the bus and I don't think I've ever enjoyed a dollar menu sandwich that much. YUM. We finished the night off with an acrobat show. It cost extra from the trip fee but was TOTALLY worth it. We were all on the edge of our seats with the letters OMG on our lips. I couldn't believe some of the things these people could do. I have a few videos that I'll try to post but my camera battery died right at the end. The final act was probably the most on edge. They had a giant metal cylinder that a guy on a motorcycle started driving around in circles on. Then there were two. Then three. Then four. Then five motorcycles circling around in different patterns in this small metal cage. Inconceivable!
Last night ended with a hot but low pressure shower that reminded me of being in field camp again after which I packed up all my new purchases and got everything for me to take when I had to wake up at 5am again. There was a group playing games every night when we got back but a hot shower and bed was much more important to me so no regrets.
Feeling pretty amazing,
no regrets,
Amanda.
