A Week in China...

Day 1: Hong Kong
       The first day and only day in Hong Kong was great. We pulled into port, which is a mall- and headed out. After wandering around the mall to find the exit, we took the ferry from Kowloon over to Hong Kong, then took a bus over to Aberdeen- a part of the city on the water. We walked around Aberdeen for a little, and most of the group went to have lunch on a floating restaurant. Being that we eat on a boat everyday, instead we went to go find Ocean Park. We had a quick lunch at KFC (a chicken sandwich with a side of…chicken?) and then took a taxi to Ocean Park- which is part zoo, part theme park. Mostly we went because Bill wanted to see the pandas- we never even made it to the amusement park part! The pandas were really cool though, and we watched this children’s show that we couldn’t understand a word of. It was interesting…after that everyone had gone off and we didn’t know where they were, so we went out to Dan Ryan’s Chicago Grill for dinner- yay cheeseburgers and fries! It was refreshing to eat such American food and not question it. After dinner we shopped a little in the mall, I already ran out of makeup so that was important. Starbucks, of course- which was really cool because we caught the Hong Kong light show that only goes from 8-8:15, and we didn’t even know! So we watched that and then went back to the boat. I packed for Beijing and everyone talked about their day- they went to the top of Victoria’s Peak and saw the city from there.
Day 2: Beijing
       The morning started at 7am in the Union, where we got our name tags, arrival cards, and backpacks to give as presents to our Beijing students. We got tp the airport and ended up having a lot of time to kill. We had Burger King for breakfast and then walked through a few shops, grabbed Starbucks- used the wiFi! I got to iSight with Lauren for about two seconds, and then got on the plane. 3 hours later, we were in Beijing. Once there, we had to wait a while for the buses so we all used the ATM and got coffee etc. I tried calling Sean but the number he gave me was wrong, luckily we had already made plans just incase. We finally boarded the buses and headed over to the hotel. Esther and I switched roommates so we ended up rooming together- which was nice, it’s always nicer to have someone you actually know then to share a room with some random person. We went over to the university for dinner and games with the students. This was the only time we got to interact with them, and they had been required to be there for one of their classes- it wasn’t the greatest part of the trip. We had pizza, bananas, and yogurt for dinner…and then Bill, Esther, Emma, and I ended up leaving before the games (they played cards) and went over to the hotel to meet Sean. Seeing Sean was so great, I’m glad everyone got to meet him too. He took us over to Ho Hai, which is a river that’s lit up with restaurants and bars. We went to a place called Purple, where he goes sometimes because his friend plays piano there. It was a really quiet place; we each had a drink and split a fruit sculpture thing. After that, we walked back through Ho Hai- ran into one of my professors, and Sean directed him to an area of bars he might like- and then Sean got us a taxi back to our hotel.
Day 4: Beijing
       Breakfast at the hotel included rice, noodles in soy sauce, and bread that tasted like water…so that was our first and only breakfast. After breakfast we drove over an hour to the Great Wall. I had asked Sean and my professor what they thought of the Wall- they both said, “It’s…great.”At breakfast, someone had mentioned that they got a text from their parents, about an e-mail they received from SAS. Before rumors started, our trip leader- the academic dean, got on each bus and announced that one of our classmates had been hit by a drunk driver in Hong Kong and was killed. Everyone was shocked; it was kind of hard news to handle. I didn’t know him personally, but I do know who he is. Esther had seen him a few hours before the accident and had put him in a cab to go back to the ship; no one knows what happened after that. He was alone when it happened, so it took a while to identify him and notify the ship. All the trips were told, but most people were on independent trips- including the boy’s roommate. When we saw people on indy trips, they already knew what happened. I’m not sure how the next two days will go, I’m sure the general mood on the ship will be different- and I’m sure they’ll talk about it as soon as everyone is on the ship.
After the hour bus ride to the Wall, we were told where to go and where to meet up. Then we started climbing- it’s a pretty steep climb up to the wall, nothing like Table Mountain but it has legitimate stairs which was a little awkward. The Wall was…great! I think we came to Beijing at a great time, the colors reminded me of home! All the leaves were changing (it’s COLD in Beijing, by the way). We went from Tower 10 to Tower 6, taking a ton of pictures on the way. At Tower 6 you have the choice to take the chute down (slide) or the chairlift, two of us took the chairlift (me!) and the other two took the slide. We shopped on the way back down to the meeting spot, I got the “I climbed the Great Wall!”t-shirt. We got back on the buses and went to lunch; our tour guide said it was his favorite place- really good…we went to Big Pizza, essentially a Pizza Hut buffet. Most people were disappointed that it wasn’t Chinese food but everyone had a ton of food anyway. Beijing is all about the unlimited beer? Unlimited beer everywhere we went- with no charge, it’s included. So strange. After the pizza we went to the Silk Market- AMAZZZZINNNG!!!! Possibly my favorite part- why? SHOPPING. So much shopping! I know I spent too much money, but I got awesome knock offs, jeans, etc. I LOVE my new True Religion jeans! Bargaining at the Silk Market was fun, they start at such a high price, our tour guide said to go 20% of that price. Since it’s freezing, and will be colder in Japan- I got a cute pea coat- she wanted $2650, I got it down to $250. Then Bill made me bargain for his jacket haha, my lady was GRIPPING my wrist and would NOT let me go. They all hand you their calculator- so you can’t just walk away, because if you try to hand it to them they just won’t take it. It’s so funny. They all compare prices too- “How much you pay for jacket??”I think it’s like, a set rule that they regulate their prices even though everyone sells the same stuff. After the Silk Market we went to an acrobatic show. It was so cool, it was like Cirque de Sole, but different. They were SO flexible, we had a kid from Canada behind us and the whole time it was “They got no bones!!!”The acts included things like…a man holding a women upside down on her head with one hand, juggling and tap dancing with 9 balls, 12 people on a bike, hoop jumping, contortionists, umbrella juggling, etc etc. It was so cool- couldn’t take pictures though, but Greg the cameraman got a DVD and said he might use it in the Voyage DVD. It was awesome that we had Greg AND Brittany (the photographer) on our trip; watch the SAS page for the slideshow! After Acrobats they went out for dinner, but Bill and I skipped it because Sean and I had made tentative plans, but they fell through, we ended up walking to McDonalds.
Day 5: Beijing
       We started this day out at ____ Square. We saw Mao’s memorial, it was so weird! They just keep his real body there, they only bring it out 2 times a day, but there were SO many people seeing it. All the Chinese people bought flowers and placed them at his memorial. After the memorial, we went over to the Forbidden City- that was cool. We had the little boxes with headphones that are supposed to narrate you through it- mine didn’t work. No one’s seemed to work that well, we gave up on them eventually. Oh! Before we went into the city we got chocolate chip cookies, but they were more like crackers with chocolate chips, they were SO GOOD- I hope I can find them in the states…anyway, the Forbidden City is HUGE. A lot of it you can’t even see- just through a door way, and the pushing and shoving to get to that doorway is ridiculous, we didn’t even bother after a while. It took a long time to walk through, but it was worth it. After that we took the buses to the Temple of Heaven where we had lunch and then walked through the three temples. It was interesting, but I’m kind of over visiting all the temples. A temple is a temple no matter which country you’re in. After the temples we went to _____ street, the street that they rebuilt for the Olympics. It was so creepy; it looked like a movie set because there are no tenants yet. It’s a replication of the old street, but everything’s a little more intricate. After walking that street, we went back to the Silk Market for an hour. A little more shopping, then back to the hotel. People went out for dinner but I wasn’t hungry so I stayed in and tried to watch TV- no such luck, EVERYTHING is in Mandarin, unlike India where it was all English. Everyone got back to the hotel and we wandered a bit, two boys were getting suits custom made in their room by a tailor so we checked that out for a bit, then we packed all of our stuff into a HUGE suitcase that Bill bought. 5 people completely filled the suitcase, and it’s so big Esther could fit in it and zip it up- and there was STILL room!
38.71SUM($A$1:$A$7)to wake up early and go to McDonalds for breakfast but no one did, well after we got on the buses and headed to the Summer Palace- there was a McDonalds across the street! Our guides told us we had 10 minutes- assuming a handful of us would go- we ALL went. They finally dragged us out and we went into the Summer Palace, it was really pretty. When we first walked in, a group of older Chinese people were line dancing- it was funny to watch. Some of them were really good! The Summer Palace is HUGE, there are two parts, separated by a lake, which you cross on neat little boats. The Palace itself is built up on a mountain, so there are a lot of rocks to climb around but it’s really cool because you can see the city all around it.
       After the Summer Palace we got lunch at an AMAZING buffet, it was so big! The food just kept going and going into all different rooms, and once you sat down they kept bringing skewers of meat over to the table to carve, it was ridiculouuuus. After the buffet, we went to the Olympic Venues…we decided to fork out a little less than 10USD to go inside the Birds Nest- well worth it! It was smaller than I imagined but just as cool. We took tons of pictures inside and walked around, they had four areas of costumes on mannequins- the costumes from the opening and closing ceremonies. It took us a while in the Nest because we went to the gift shop too. It was crazy, on the way to the gift shop these men stopped me and I couldn’t understand what one was saying to me and his friend goes, “He said it’s nice to finally meet you!”He started looking through pictures on his camera so I went to walk away and he said “No, no no!”And then he showed me a picture he took of me like, half an hour before? SO WEIRD! But that was apparently common, everyone has been taking pictures of us the whole time here. It was just weird for them to come up and show me? After the gift shop we walked over to the Water Cube, but didn’t go in. Apparently there wasn’t water in the pool anyway. Our group met, well…most of them. Some people showed up 15 minutes late and ended up getting dock time because we were getting on the buses to go to the airport. We all made it to the airport, got all of our bags checked (SO many people bought SO MUCH stuff!) and made it to the gate. I started not to feel well at the Olympic Venues; by the time we were at the airport I had a migraine and a bit of a fever. Someone gave me Advil and I got some coffee and I feel fine now, it was weird though because pretty much everyone had a headache. Anyway, I’m currently on the plane writing this and we’re flying over Shanghai, I think we’re landing soon.
Day 7: Shang Hai
             After traveling for four days straight, I was exhausted last night! I woke up and went out with Allison, Austin, and Bill to find the post office and an internet café. We found the post office, but never found the internet. We’re pretty sure that you just can’t go on it if you’re not from China. We did find McDonalds, however getting back to the ship was a little more difficult. This is the worst language barrier we’ve experienced- even in Hong Kong and Beijing most people understood a little English, here? Nothing. The address of port was written on our Green sheets in English- no one knew what it meant, apparently most of those words don’t even exist in Chinese because when we found someone who spoke pretty decent English, they didn’t know what “pier”meant. We eventually got in a cab, but it only brought us a few miles but it was enough to point us in the right direction. We got back on the ship to figure out what to do about Japan, and then headed out to buy our rail passes. We had a map in Mandarin this time, and the taxi driver appeared to know where he was going. 20 minutes later he leaves us at this construction site, saying this is the building. There was a man across the street- in the construction zone that kept looking at us and smiling, we went over to him and showed him our map. He ended up walking us about 15 minutes away from where we were dropped off, and went as far as to put us in the elevator to where we needed to buy the passes- he was so nice! We came back to the ship- they had the address written in mandarin available for us by now, and it’s definitely time for a nap.