Paparazzi! (Or China Part III)

For reasons that were never explained to us, our train was about two hours late getting into Beijing. After loosing and then finding a few members of our group (luckily none of them were children), we checked into our hotel and got cleaned up (yes, Chinese trains are just as gross as Russian trains) then headed to lunch - where we were served Turtle soup. Cam was brave and tried the a big bite with some of whatever was in the broth (real turtles?). I tried one little sip of the broth and decided to forgo soup that day. Then it was off to Tienanmen Square. Remember, this was October 1st - the first of seven days of a huge national holiday - the place was PACKED! But because it was a holiday, they also had big TV screens set up and new decorations out which was fun. Our first stop was a group picture with the Forbidden City in the background. This was also our introduction to the Chinese Paparazzi. Apparently people from all over China travel to Beijing for this holiday and most of them have never seen Americans before. The minute we stopped for picture we had 20 people pulling out their cameras to take pictures of us. The guy that took our picture (in the yellow and red jacket) started going around selling the picture to random people in the square! We would also have people come up and ask to get a picture with us! We felt like celebrities! The crowds were what amazed me though, it was just wall-to-wall people. We left Tienanmen Square through an underground crosswalk and there was a line of people extending through the entire crosswalk just waiting to get through security and on to the square. After Tienanmen Square we went to a park next to the Forbidden City where David O. McKay dedicated China. After wandering in the park for a bit (and posing for a lot more pictures) we headed back to our bus and to our hotel for an early night. A group of us decided to brave the "Pizza Hut" near our hotel for dinner. I was very excited to see that they had "Tuna & Mush potato with Vegetables Salad". But those who really know me, know I was ecstatic to see Banana Pizza on the menu! :) No, I didn't try either. We split a plain cheese pizza. The only exciting thing I had was a surprise soda - I thought I was getting Mirinda orange, but what they served me was green and non-carbonated. Welcome to China!

Terracotta Warriors - China Part II

The next day we drove out to see the Terracotta Warriors. Our first stop however, was a factory where they make replicas. I think souvenir shopping must be the main economic base in China - everyday we had to make stop in a government sponsored shop that guaranteed to be the only place you could get the "real" thing. First they showed us the kiln outside the shop. Then we spent about half an hour getting pictures of everyone in the group as Warriors. It was really cool to see the people working on each of the pieces by hand. If you want to pay the big bucks, you can even have yourself made into a Terracotta statue, just like Barack Obama and David Beckham! Finally, we made it to the real Terracotta Warrior museum. What an incredible sight. You walk into the main building and there in front of you is thousand of warriors and horses. One interesting thing that we learned at the factory is that there are five different types of warriors, from foot soldiers to captains, to archers, it wasn't all the same mold. I also never knew that after the warriors were built and buried, another army came through and found the pits and knocked over and burned them. So, all of the thousands of warriors have been painstakingly pieced back together - which is still happening today. It was really interesting to see the areas they have set up to put the warriors back together. It was also fun to see the areas where they are still excavating and finding different pieces. This was definitely a highlight of my trip. I can see why this is considered one of the wonders of the world.

After lunch we went to the Xi'an City wall. This is one of the only completely intact city walls in China. You can rent a bike and ride around the entire ancient city on top of the wall. Unfortunately we were short on time, so we couldn't get all the way around the wall, but I did ride along about 1/4 of the wall. Again, it was so sad to look down and see the poverty that some of the people are living in. This area looked like a garbage dump with demolished homes, but these were inhabited homes with clothes lines and umbrellas up for shade! It actually reminded me a lot of Russia. After spending some time on the wall we went to the Muslim market for more shopping. It was so interesting to see what the different vendors were selling. This woman had little tiny eggs that she was cracking into this mold, to make some kind of eggs on a stick.

Cam did some research before we left and discovered that Xi'an is well known for their Persimmon pancakes - so we asked our guide to help us get some pancakes to try while we were at the market. They were really good, they were almost like a little scone with different fillings in the middle like dates, roses, and walnuts. Almost everyone in our group had to try a few and Cam was very excited that she started a trend. After the market we raced to the train station to catch our train to Beijing. OH. MY. GOODNESS. The train station!! What a madhouse!! This was on September 30. October 1st is a MAJOR national holiday - so EVERYONE was going to the train station to start their holiday trips. There was a massive line just to get in the train station because you had to go through a metal detector and send your bags through an x-ray. Like Russians, Chinese people don't wait patiently in line for their turn, they push and shove to the front. My bottle of water fell out of my backpack as I was retrieving it from the x-ray machine, and I honestly thought I was going to be trampled when I bent over to pick it up! I felt so bad for the ladies in our group that had their little kids with them - once we got in the train station it wasn't any better - more pushing and shoving and chances for little kids to get trampled or lost! It was SO stressful for me - and I was only worried about not getting lost myself! We were all so relieved to get to the waiting room for the first class ticket holders where things were a little more calm. And we were especially glad to get our entire group on the train and settled in our cabins ready for our long overnight trip to Beijing.

And So It Begins, or China Part I

Hooray! I am finally caught up enough to blog about my trip to China! This is definitely going to take some time, so sit back, relax, and enjoy part 1.

First off, getting to China. This is not a lot of fun. In total we spent about 26 hours from the time we left my house to the time we got to our hotel in Xi'an. The flight from LA to Shanghai is about 14 hours and since we were getting there in the evening, I didn't want to sleep on the plane. About halfway through the flight, when I realized we still had another 7 hours to go I really thought I was going to have a panic attack, go crazy, or both! And let's not forget the food. Wow, airline food has a bad rep to begin with, but airline Chinese food? Really. not. appetizing! After our 14 hour flight we had a two hour layover in Shanghai. This was a really cool airport, but we were SO tired, and the airport was SO hot and humid. I wrote in my journal and then sprawled out across a bunch of chairs and dozed off. We were really looking spectacular by this point! After a two hour flight, we finally landed in Xi'an. Too bad it was still a 45 minute drive to the hotel! The next morning we went to the Cultural History museum. To be honest, I didn't get much out of this museum, we were all still pretty jet-lagged, and I think our tour guide took us there so we would shop in the gift shop, not so that we would see anything great! But, our lunch was a lot of fun, so that made up for it. We went to a restaurant and had hot pots. The first step in hot pots is to make your dipping sauce. This table was full of sesame oil, garlic, crushed peanuts, rose paste stuff, all sorts of interesting things that you mixed up in a little bowl to dip your food in. After you made your dipping sauce each person got their own individual hot pot. It was kind-of like a fondue pot with a broth in it that you would dip veggies, eggs, meats, noodles, etc. in. I think this was my favorite Chinese meal on the whole trip. It was a lot of fun experimenting with the different options on the table - although the egg was a little hard to fish out of the pot with chopsticks!

After lunch we went to the Little Wild Goose pagoda. You can't climb up in it because during an earthquake the building split apart at the top. Then, after a second earthquake it moved back together. So, not a very safe or stable building, but fun to look at.They also had this huge bell you could ring (for a fee of course) and a pretty cool statue garden.

After the pagoda, we went to the Star Fish Orphanage. This was a highlight of the trip. This orphanage is set up for children with physical or developmental disabilities. It was so much fun to play with the kids and hold the babies. We were all sad to go and wished we could have spent more time there. The orphanage is in a complex with some government sponsored buildings, including a retirement home. As we were leaving an older gentleman from the home was out for a walk. He said hello to our tour guide but either she didn't hear him, or was too busy trying to get us back on our bus, and didn't respond. He was LIVID! That was such a sign of disrespect. So, he planted himself in front of our bus and would not move! Our tour guide went out and apologized, our bus driver got out and tried to talk to him, the security guard from the front gate came over and tried to help, no one could get this man to move. Finally, after about 15 minutes of trying to reason with the man, one of the caregivers from the retirement home came over and was able to pull him away enough that our bus was able to maneuver around him. Again, he was LIVID, he started hitting and kicking this woman, trying to get away to stop us. What an interesting end to our afternoon - or so I thought. The interesting times were just beginning! I don't know if our bus driver thought he was taking a short-cut or if he got lost, but on the trip back to our hotel, we saw a side of China, I'm not sure we were supposed to see. We ended up wandering through the more rural, non commercial, non touristy areas. I'm surprised our bus even made it down some of the streets, at one point we had to reverse down the street because there wasn't enough room for our bus and the truck that was coming in the opposite direction. There were so many people out selling their wares on the sides of the street. I'm not sure many of them had ever seen so many tourists at once staring out at them from the bus! We had a blast waving from the windows and seeing who we could get to smile and wave back. Everyone was so friendly. I couldn't believe how brave people are there on the road, they would ride on their bikes right alongside the bus. There weren't any lanes, people would just all crowd in where they could. This woman was on her little scooter with her little boy riding on the back pretty much touching the bus as she went by - I took this looking down out of the bus window! The one thing that was sad to see was all the filth and poverty some of these people live in. We would drive past places that looked like they should be condemned, or areas that looked like garbage piles, and then you would see people living there.

After our interesting little detour, we had about an hour back at the hotel to rest up before we were supposed to meet to go over to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. They have a fountain and light show in the evening that our tour guide wanted us to see. It was pretty fun, but we were all still so tired, the minute it was over we were racing for the bus so we could go back to the hotel and go to bed. Up next, the Terracotta Warriors!