Beijing pt 2 Great Wall and Bird Nest

To start off the week we had a good Church meeting at the Beijing International Branch, It was really weird because it was in an office building with Dairy Queen attached to it and people were still working haha. It was really cool to see lots of people that werent of Chinese descent coming together for this one day. After church we were invited to the Relief Society Presidents home for dinner! Told there was going to be home made American food! We had been fasting all day so we were famished. When we arrived we found out that we werent the only ones going to be attending the dinner party and had time to get to know one another. We had a 2nd counsler and his wife, a couple and two funny british guys going to college in China. The dinner bell rang and we grabbed our plates for a dinner set up like a buffet. She had prepared bbq pork, home made rolls, fruit jello, chips, salad and so on, haha we had never eaten so much! Then they brought our dessert which we couldnt eat for like an hour while we digested, we were planning on staying there all day, she had carpet.. We had a little devontional from the 2nd counsler and were scooted on our way. We had to get a good nights rest anyway for tomorrow which was a big day. The Great Wall of China!! We woke up around six so we could walk to where our tour was going to take off of. Other then our group we were also with about seven others, some from Jeruselum, some from England and one really small Chinese guy. We were dropped off in the middle of no where and were waiting for our tour guide, our tour was the secret Great Wall so it wasnt the fancy version and we had no idea where to go. Then from behind the crowd of us we heard the little Chinese man beckon us to follow him... Lexxy started to call him Hank and it caught on pretty quickly, turns out that Hank was 72 years old... im sorry let me retype that.. Hank was 72 years old about to take us on a two hour hike up hill. Holy Calolo!! He was a champ. When we got up to the wall it was incredible! You could see all around you and the wall was growing plants and crumbling and went on forever!! We walked the wall for a while and found a guard tower, I think you could imagine what popped into our heads at this point. Since we couldn't sleep on the wall we were going to leave our mark another way. So we waited until everyone had moved on the the next scene and ever so slyly Natty exclaimed, "Ladies, this is our duty. It much be fulfilled and if not by us then who?" Thats all the pep talk we needed, Brittany handed out the white squares and had to snap a quick pose of victory. WC!!! WC aka: ladies summer room. After each taking a guard look out we couldn't help but throw high fives and race to where our group was. Hank had them resting in a larger guard tower for some drinks and pictures. Omri, the jewish guy, had us all flustered with his accent but thought us a crazy group because we had a dance party on the Wall of greatness. The wall took up most of our day and didn't have much time for anything else so we just explored and found a park with karaoke and ribbon dancing and occupied ourselves for the night. Our last day in Beijing was pretty busy with sight seeing, first thing in the morning we went to the Temple of Heaven, its where they did sacrafices and stuff. We walked the grounds and saw huge gates and the most amazing art work you have ever seen! The last thing we were suppose to see in Beijing was the Bird nest from the Olympics. We took a million buses a few bridges and lots of walking to get there and guess what.. it was closed!!! It was the saddest thing! But you could get a little closer then the very outside gate so some went and some didn't. Nat and Brit wanted to go back to the silk market and Lexxy was determined to sneak in it thats what it took. Nat and Brit finally got everything they need from the silk shop done, dancing and the whole shabang really sped things up. Two girls and Lex walked the closest to the Nest to savor the moment, but there were like five other gates closing it off, Lex says she wanted nothing more then to run that glorious track. So disapointing! Sarah, Abby and Lex started walking home and the fastest way was to cross the freeway.. Don't worry they didnt do it but did climb the bridge above the freeway and Jason Bourned it across holding for dear life and shuffling on their tip toes, I guess a twenty foot drop to speeding cars really does put your life into perspective. Once all home safe and sound we had our last night of packing to get ready to leave in the morning on our flight back. When we got back home we had all day to unpack and relax before getting back to teaching. Good to be home! We missed our Kids!!

Beijing Pt. 1 Forbidden city, Silk market

The adventure continues when we train into Beijing. A 32 hour Ride. We had to take three separate taxis to get to our hostel because there were so many of us, so we had the leader and two others in one, four other girls in another and us three and Dan in the third one. Since we don’t speak much Chinese at all we just show the taxi driver where we are going and then he will nod yes or no if he knows where he is going. But since they were just going to follow each other they didn’t really look at the directions just followed the car in front. Well the car with the leader and the directions was in the front.. very far in front, so when a light turned green that’s when you were on your own. The car with the four girls turned someone on the way and they weren’t following us either, all three cars were separated and two of the drivers had no idea where they were going. We were the only car out of the two lost with a phone number, funny that we didn’t have a cell phone, the four girl car didn’t have anything. Luckily Dan could speak a good amount of Chinese and started yelling to the driver that he lost our friends and that he was lost, the driver started getting angry back and kept driving stating the car was still in front of us and we weren’t lost. When we were stopped Dan got out and looked around and they were no where to be found! The driver gave up pulled over and started calling for directions, we tried the hostel phone number but it was a dud and didn’t work. Haha. So we went to Tiananmen Square because we were planning on going there later in the day. When we got there we decided that there was no way we were going to pay the driver the full amount because he got us lost. Lost in the city of Beijing, we hardly spoke any Chinese, we didn’t know the name of our hostel, we knew nothing! We hoped out of the car, threw the driver 15 Yuan (3 USD) and started walking off he grabbed Brit’s bag and wouldn’t let it go and Dan shoved the guy and threw up his hands and started yelling at him in Chinese!! Haha! It was the funniest thing we had ever seen! So here’s a shout out to Dan! We decided to wait in a hotel while Brit and Dan went to look for help, after about an hour we went to go find a knife to dig into our breakfast, and apple. We went to KFC, keep in mind that its about 7 o clock in the morning and people are having KFC for breakfast! Fries and chicken sandwiches. We brushed our teeth in the sinks and found a knife and waited some more for Dan, finally he found some people that magically the phone number worked and it happened to be that our hostel was about three minutes walking distance from where we were. They went to go check it out and Nat and Lexxy stayed behind to hold the fort. We were sitting by the window and no joke in the midst of the huge crowd of Chinese people passing every which way we saw two Americas walking probably a football field away and we stood up and just started and then the Americans saw us and started running to us! It was our leader and Dan’s sister! We ran out with a great hug to greet them. It was so weird how we saw each other through glass and yards away. You really do stick out in China. Once settled in our hostel we went to the Forbidden City Kingdom, its where back in the day you couldn’t enter or leave it once you were in and its where the Emperors lived. There is so much symbolism there, for example, most buildings are square at the bottom which represents earth and then Circular on top to represent heaven. Even the trees they grow are special and how many doors there are and where the doors are and bridges and such. Some rooms you couldn’t even go into because it was so sacred. Oh must we not forget to mention that General Mao’s body is frozen there. So you can see him all frozen and weird but it was closed that day because of the big holiday. Now the excitement really begins for us on this vacation simply because we had been waiting for this day since we found out we really were going to go through with this whole China buis. Shopping for the incredibly priced brands Beijing has to offer! We expected the Silk and pearl shop to be not much then very old people selling you cheap silk and fake pearls, boy we were wrong! We walked in and were greeted with real leather and fur and diamonds and we could go on forever!! The down side of it was we only had but a wee wad of spending cash. You can bargain like crazy and if they won’t go any lower then you can go to their neighbor and get it much cheaper. We ended splitting up most the time because we had different interests in mind, the only page we were on the same was the first floor (there were six floors in all) and that was the purse floor. We wish we could only describe this to you! It was like a mile long and half a mile wide, a bit of exaggeration but seriously! This place was HUGE! In order to bargain and get what you want is to make friends with them first, Lexxy and Brit found the perfect way to do such. (Nat was usually running around like a chicken with her head cut off.) Lexxy and Brit are known for the singing couple, you will see that they love to take couple pictures and sing duets. So that’s how they made friends is to sing and dance for the Chinese people when they wanted a price, it’s called the 80 Yuan dance. It worked every time! First you will hear the starting song note from Lexxy, “Do I hear an eighty Yuan?” (In tune to one of the Phantom of the Opera songs) Then Brit Chimes in, “I thought I just heard you say eighty Yuan, dear friend be kind for we are poor.” Something like that. We continue to sing and start to dance, way cool dance by the way. They usually laugh, ask for a picture and give us what we want sometimes cheaper. This one time though Brit and Lexxy were singing and dancing for a Juicy purse and it was around closing time so everyone was closing up and when we started to dance all the Chinese people stopped what they were doing and soon enough we had a crowd the size of the Olympics watching and surrounding us, taking pictures and recording videos. Nat happened to walk up right at that moment and was caught up in everyone cheering and yelling for the three Americans to keep dancing and singing. When it was time to leave we danced our way out of the circle and they just kept saying, “You guys are so cool, can we be friends, you should be professional dancers, (haha which is hysterical because we really are terrible) will you come back, America is so awesome.” We will be honest, we were exhausted! We loved the silk shop so much we went back three times! Every time we went back, after that dance episode, we couldn’t buy something without them saying you’re the dancing Americans! Dance and take picture with me and you can have it for your price. Didn’t even matter what floor you were on. It started to get old after a while but hey, we all had our families Christmas! All in all we had like 10 pea coats and jackets, pants, shoes, jewels, make up, and about 18 purses between us three. It was really fun! That’s only the first part of Beijing! Next up, the Great wall, Temple of Heaven, and Bird Nest….

Chengdu

A twelve day vacation! Its about time! We left on a friday after teaching our last class and could not have been more ready for a break. We first flew to Chengdu within hours and had a van ready to take us to our hostel, our hostel was glorious... All 11 of us shared one big dorm room with 5 bunk beds and then the whole top floor shared a community bathroom and shower. The beds where way hard, we thought the other beds where hard but atleast they had an inch of padding, these were strictly wood and a piece of cloth but by the end of the day you where so tired it felt like a slice of heaven. The first night we only had a couple of hours to sleep before we had to wake up and....... VISIT THE PANDA BEARS!!! Its one of the biggest panda reservations, or as Brittany says, "Panda reservoir" haha It was raining but it wasnt to bad, It was so awesome to see these cute little pandas eating away on the bamboo, they seriously just sit and eat. Thats the life if you ask us. We also were able to see new born pandas, the more new ones were so ugly but the month old ones were so small and crazy. We were there most the day but once we got back we went exploring around the city trying to find a bank and yup you guessed it we definantly got lost again! It took us a good two hours in the pouring rain to find it and once we did it took twenty minutes to get back.. laugh it up... We even stopped at a fruit stand to get tomorrows breakfast. Were going to miss the millions of fruit stands when we leave, every where you turn there is fresh fruit! The following day was a day of relaxation so we walked down the road of Tibet, we were that close! After walking for what seemed hours we stopped in a really nice clothing store, they had a couch so of course we grabbed some magazines and read and took a nap for probably an hour or so, funny thing is that we were the only people in the shop and the lady couldnt speak English so she couldnt quite tell us to go, the couch was the most comfortable thing since the plane. Somehow Natty convinced the store lady to let her take a magazine she really liked. On the walk home we happened to run across a starbucks.. haha ironic eh? It follows us everywhere! We walked in the have some dessert and while sitting there having cup cake talk the most amazing thing happened, Lexxy looked at us and said, "Its time." she flipped a 180 within days, you may not think its the same Lex when you see her. Its cool to say you changed in Chengdu, China while eating in starbucks. This same day we had some people from our group leave for a two day hike so we had some strangers as roomates, worse then that they were drunk and being on the top bunk we were able to watch them make out all night.. it was disturbing! Too bad we didnt have any popcorn. In the morning we slept in only to wake up to fresh fruit on the open deck for breakfast, it was a bit brisk but felt refreshing, while sitting there at the table someone had a great idea to get a massage. We had heard about this place that will give 60 minute massages for 3 dollars! It took us a couple buses and a few miles but the journey was well worth it. Six of us went and all at the same time, Britt had a blind girl workin on her, apparently she was compensating for her loss of sight, you know.. strong hands and all haha Lexxy had some old lady, very rough old lady, she would pull so hard on her arms and legs that her whole body was tingling after and not the good kind either. Natty claims her man was gentle.. probably for fear he may break her in half! We had also heard about this mexican resturant called Tex Mex that we really wanted to try so we decided to go for dinner. It took about another 2 hours walking and luckily we found 2 chinese girls that knew where it was so we made friends and followed them there. Not only was Tex Mex cheap but it had salt and pepper, real ice cream, french toast, tacos Etc. We all shared some chips and salsa and then had our own entree and then some dessert, the oreo flurry was the best thing that had happened to us all week! In fact were ashamed to say we went back two more times.. Man thats embarassing! Later Wednesday we finally left for Beijing by train which would take us 32 hours, it wasnt so bad, two nights and day.... Tune in for more lost adventures in Beijing...