Ok, so my journal entry is taking way too long to write out and
I’ll probably bore you with details anyways…so here is the short and sweet
version. And yes I know, that even for a short version..its still pretty long.
Train: hard seats – 32 hours – that is way too long to be on
a train. Not very comfortable. Lots of smokers because we were near the back.
Squatter bathrooms smelled awful. Just laughed at everything, that’s all you
can do sometimes to handle it.
Xi’an: super fun city. The weather was awesome (aka NOT
humid!). My favorite part was biking around on top of the city wall. Darci and
I rented a tandem bike, it was AWESOME! Did some fun bargaining. Katrina is my
favorite to watch bargaining. We pretended we were sisters at one point. We
were starving students. Got called “my dear” every other word by this one
vendor. One of the vendors let me sit while he bargained with Katrina and gave
me this book call “You May Find You Chinese Name Inside this book” and it was
written on a paper and taped on the book. But to my surprise, I actually DID
find my name in this book, Solana and Curtis. Found this awesome taro ice cream
that I fell in love with. Ate it twice in one day…What? Who said that? Moving
on. Tried octopus at the Muslim quarters, didn’t get to go into the mosque.
Bummer. But the octopus wasn’t that bad. The seasonings were good (cumin, I
think.) but the texture was weird.
Train: hard sleeper – 21 hours – it felt like heaven
compared to hard seats. There were so many more people who knew English so we
made so many friends. Iris and Eric had the bottom sleepers and were so nice to
let us sit on their beds. We gave this one friend we made an English name. We
wrote down names we thought were cool and all our brother’s names. We put down
Corbin for my brother’s name even though its spelled differently and that’s the
one he picked. This guy Evan helped Kelsey and I on the train and his brother
and he sat with us for awhile. They have 4 kids in their family. We asked how
that was possible and it sounded like they just have to pay a fee. We played Uno
with them and some other people that joined. It was an awesome way for us to
learn the colors and numbers in Chinese and we helped them learn them in
English. It was great. There were a lot more families on this one it felt like.
The whole atmosphere felt very friendly and there were no smokers around us! We
actually got to sleep which was so nice! We met this kid William who is super
good at chess. Him and Teal were best buds. Victor was my little friend and let
me tell you, this kid is so cute! I love his voice! He helped me practice my
numbers. He sure stole my heart. This train ride went by so fast.
Beijing: Our first day in Beijing (Monday), Darci, Jace,
Katrina and I went to Insect street to try some new things. We ended up eating:
scorpion(surprisingly good), snake(not bad), starfish(hard and gross), ostridge(pretty
good), eel(I didn’t like it), deer kidney(not bad but not good either) and those
were the crazy things we tried on sticks. But we also had this sugar comb
stuff, coconut milk, this nasty milk yogurt thing (dairy is just not good here,
unless its ice cream), cotton candy made to look like a flower, and this dried
fruit stuff. Pretty fun stuff.
The next day (Tuesday) we went to the Temple of Heaven there
was beautiful rose gardens, this circle of old people hacking sacking like you’ve
never seen it done before! They were tricksters fo sho! There was a beautiful
moment when everyone else was taking sweet picture of this spider but across
from the bushes beyond us was this group of people dancing. There were wearing
traditional costumes but one lady was also wearing sunglasses on her heads.
They looked so happy and they danced with each other. It was a tender moment
for me to be able to watch these modern people celebrating a culture rich with
traditions and history. America is a relatively young country with a blend of many
cultures. I was happy for these people who laughed and danced and enjoyed their
culture.
Then we went to the Summer Place, we didn’t have a lot of
time but it was a beautiful place and probably the coolest summer home I’ve
ever seen! It was just before sunset so all the colors seemed to be a little
more vibrant. I love how all the buildings are fully of such colorful artwork
and architecture.
The next day (Wednesday) we went to Tiananmen square, there
were so many people. I wore my red and white striped shirt and had some fun
taking “where’s Waldo” pictures. We had so many Asians ask to take pictures
with us. Jace went to go do something so Darci and I waited for him and we had
all these people take pictures with us and give us their kids to hold and take
pictures with. It was fun and we didn’t have anything better to do, but it was
hard to get away. Then we went to see the Forbidden City that was pretty cool
and we hiked to this hill thing over looking it. Pretty cool stuff. Then we
went to the pearl market. It was so fun and there were some great deals and fun
stuff. They would also call you beautiful girl. And when you bargained they
would give you the “low price” but only because you so beautiful, or you so
nice, or even just, because I like you. Such fun!
Our last full day (Thursday) we went to the great wall. We
woke up early to take the subway to a bus to a van. The van got a flat tire on
the way (I feel like I’m always getting flat tires on road trips!). We were
suppose to go on this long 6 hour hike. But they dropped us off at the wrong place
so it ended up only being the last hour or 2 of the hike. Emmaline and I were
pretty excited about that because we are not super fast, strong endurance
hikers like everyone else. Even with the shorter one we were bringing in the
rear. But it was way fun. The Great Wall is super legit. There is a good reason
why they call it great. The stairs leading up to it are death though. They are
steep and there are many. But we made it! I hiked the Great Wall, jumped on the
Great Wall, ate Oreos on the Great Wall, did a cartwheel on the Great Wall, did
the worm on the Great Wall (the guards nearby chuckled heh heh), and yes, I
even KISSED the Great Wall. The one big disappointment was that we wanted to
zip line off the great wall but that part of the wall was closed for
reconstruction or something. Sad day. We were really bummed.
We went to the Pearl Market one last time get some things
before going back to the hostel. Packed everything up to leave in the morning.
Next day (Friday): woke up and went to the train station.
Ran to get on the train first so we could put our luggage up (we were last,
last time so we had to sit with our luggage on our laps, but we didn’t have
seats this time so we needed to make sure our luggage made it in the luggage
area.
Train: Standing seats – 20 hours – yes, we didn’t even have
seats. We bought these stool things and newspaper to sit on. Darci bought this car
window thing that you use to keep your car cool in the summer. My stool broke
within 30 minutes of the train leaving. It was awesome. Luckily since we were
first we got the back of the train..or not so luckily because we were near the
bathrooms and the trash in the smoker area. But since we were the last cart on
the train the trolley people didn’t go past us so we could spread out some. It
was a long ride. We took turns sleep on the floor on the newspaper and mat. The
bathroom smelled atrocious and we smelled it every time the door open. We had
people throw up in the trash bag next to us and we had mothers hold their children
over same said trash bag to poop. It smelled so bad constantly. When we got off
the train we thought the smell was haunting us, but no, it had just sunk into
us and we felt sorry for anyone who had to get near us. I think most of this
train ride I have just blocked from my mind. But hey, I got to experience 3
different forms of train rides. I just hope I never had standing tickets on a
long train ride again.
But we made it home! Went from train to train to bus to bus
and up the stairs where we could shower and wash our stuff. I was going to try
to stay up so I could go to bed at a regular time but ended up falling asleep
almost immediately.
Overall it was a super fun vacation that went by so fast. Lots
of adventures were had! Hope you enjoyed the abridged version of it. Peace!
No comments:
Post a Comment