Kung Fu Pandas

(April 1-7, 2012)

Ni hao! China was AWESOME. I think it might have been one of my favorite ports, definitely. We docked in Hong Kong on the first day and I was really sick, I was unable to get off the ship that morning which was really upsetting. But in the afternoon I got off with a few girls and walked around and went to "afternoon tea" in the Ritz Carlton and had gorgeous views of the city and then made our way back out to the ship to meet up for dinner and the night, but inevitably with a stop at H & M for cold weather clothing because it would be FREEZING in Beijing. J, J, L, R, C, and I went out to meet up with another SASer's friend from Maymester but we couldn't find him in his hotel and we wound up going to a local Chinese restaurant. The food was delicious; I ordered pan fried noodles that were actually fried fried, like eating uncooked ramen. Everything else was good though, JH and I shared the ramen and fried rice. As a table, we wanted to try the local Chinese wine but it was a bad idea. It was served hot, like sake, and had a dark brown, syrupy color to it. And it tasted even worse. It was like a hot soy sauce with a little bit of rubbing alcohol into it. Seriously, it was disgusting. We went out to meet up with some of our friends and JH and I had to go home to pack because we were leaving decently early in the morning for our trip to Beijing!

 

The trip to Beijing was amazing. The people on my trip were so cool and everything we did was so interesting. I've realized that I use a lot of the same words in these posts a lot but there's only so much I can do… oh well. We took a 3-hour plane flight to Beijing and the Hong Kong airport was massive. I'm convinced it was like the size of Connecticut. When we touched down in Beijing, we headed to our hotel and out to dinner. On our walk to find dinner, we ran into a weird line-dancing convention thing in front of a church plaza. We all joined in and a cute little Chinese woman taught us the dance. When we stumbled upon the restaurant, they put us in our own separate room. We ordered 9 different dishes and ate way too much; the food was delicious. We stumbled across a little hole in the wall bar where there was a band playing American oldies with a Chinese accent and some songs in Chinese. The boys decided to take the Jenga blocks and make Rube Goldberg devices using the blocks as dominos. The videos might be the funniest thing I've ever seen, each loop and obstacle was named something different.

 

The next day, the group left for the wall and, keep in mind I was sick a few days ago. I felt motion-sick in the bus, which NEVER happens, and had to brave the 1.,480 odd stairs UP to the Great Wall. That doesn't even include how far I walked on the wall. It was about 2 miles up and a 4 mile hike down the wall. I felt so ill that I almost turned around but I figured I couldn't do that, especially without actually stepping foot on the wall. Some little Chinese woman held my hand the whole way up to make sure I made it, that was only semi-embarrassing. She continued through the portion of the old wall and then I felt obligated to buy souvenirs from her. But afterwards, I kept going and made it the full four miles without being sick :) The view was unbelievable and we climbed over it onto a hilltop and watched the sun set and took some unbelievable photos. We hiked down and it and had some dinner, where it was FREEZING. The dinner was delicious, glad to know I still like Chinese food as much as I do in the states  :) But then we all hung out, chilled for a while, and went to sleep in our tents. It was so cold, I was in 3 pairs of socks, leggings, sweatpants, a scarf, a long sleeve shirt, a sweatshirt, a North Face where the fleece and rain jacket are separate but you can wear them together, a panda hat, and a beanie. I was sleeping at the bottom of my sleeping back with a good foot on top of me so I was actually pretty warm... The next morning we got up and hiked up for sunrise, another mile+. Rough life, so cold. Here's a picture to show how good I look bundled up... glad I go to a warm weather school. This will also be the one and only time I EVER wear navy/black together. I was disgusted with myself...

The rest of the day was spent sight-seeing at Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was really cool, somehow my group lagged behind and I think I would have liked it a whole lot more if I had been able to take my time and do it as I wanted to. There was a line that must have been the longest wait ever to see Mao's mausoleum. After the city, we went for Peking Duck, DELICIOUS! It was kinda weird watching them carve it but I just pretended it was like Thanksgiving. For the remainder of the day, we hiked a drum tower and saw a performance (seriously, what is up with China and their stairs?!) and visited a traditional house. The drum thing was pretty cool but the house was a little boring. The transportation to and from was a rickshaw so that was interesting, JH kept getting hit by the driver behind us, hahahahaha. Afterwards, we went out and hung out with other SAS kids in their hotel that night and the next day, we took a 5 and a half hour bullet train back to Shanghai! 

on the drum tower with a shot of Beijing in the back

group in the Forbidden City holding up the "Victory" sign, NOT PEACE! Found that out...

Once back to Shanghai, we had to go through the process of reboarding the ship and going through customs. We were unsure if we were going to be able to get off that night but we were able to , thank goodness, and JH and I went out to meet M&M for dinner at a delicious little Italian place. I'd go back just for that food... Then we went out to a club that was the weirdest, most disgusting place I've been and thank goodness I never have to go back. K, JH and I went shopping the next day and went to a pearl market, I've never had so much fun buying stuff in my entire life. We had dim sum for lunch and it was delicious, so good I had it the next day at the same restaurant! That night was a little more fun, we went to dinner and a whole group of us showed up and we took over and sang Karaoke and did whatever songs we wanted :) A tasting: American Pie, Waka Waka, I'm on a Boat, Wagon Wheel, Barefoot Blue Jean Night, etc. The last day in Shanghai was spent doing some more shopping (I love fakes.) and sum more dim sum. So delicious, so much fun. I honestly loved China. I definitely would go back and spend some more time in each city. I think the people I was with made it so much more fun, I travelled with people I normally don't and I think I made better friends because of it :)