Beijing!! AKA- The Best Vacation of My Life

I feel like such the sucky blogger. I do apologize. On the bright side, I just got back from freakin' Beijing! It was such a blast and I daresay it might have been even better than Yangshuo. Eh, maybe not. They're tied.

On Friday, Megan and I headed to the train station. Our train left a little after 8 pm. I was salty about having to pay double for the ticket because the cheap ones were sold out, but it was truly a blessing in disguise. The seats on this train reclined, and I was joyous to wake up realizing that I slept nearly a full 7 hours. When we arrived, we wandered around Beijing for FOUR HOURS because my stupid phone was dead and that's where I had the address of the hostel in Chinese. Oh, the joy. What did we do? Slinked into the Metro line and used an outlet we found above a lit poster. I was anticipating that we be thrown in jail or something if we were caught. China is crazy.

Our wanderings weren't all bad, we found a McDonald's that was serving breakfast. Heck yes, we are fat Americans. We had the address of the hostel in Chinese, but for some reason, we were turned away from two taxi drivers. Come to find out, the hostel was just too close and so they wouldn't be getting much money out of us. While walking around some more, trying to find the GD hostel for the fourth hour, we walked by this Chinese man on the sidewalk. He spoke English and started talking to us. He had an art gallery nearby and offered to help us locate our hostel on a map. We followed him inside and he ended up calling our hostel and getting directions on the bus so we only had to spend one kaui instead of twelve on a taxi. While inside his shop, I bought something for my mom. He also told us he worked with a touring agency and could sign us up for a tour of the Great Wall for only 100 kaui per person. We were skeptical, but we figured what the heck and we took our chances. The funny thing is, when we got back to our hostel, we saw signs plastered everywhere about scams involving cheap tours sold out of art galleries. I'm pleased to report that ours was no such thing. Anyways, this nice man walked us all the way to the bus station and we arrived at our hostel shortly.

It was SO nice! I was way impressed. We only paid 45 kaui a night/person (about seven USD) and it was better than many hotels that I've been to in the U.S. WHY doesn't America have hostels?? They have very, very few. It makes me sad. Anywho, we lounged around the hostel because we were exhausted. After a few hours, a young girl about our age comes in with her mom. They're from Denmark and we make friends with her pretty fast. We end up going to dinner with her and then out to another hostel. I have met so many awesome people since I've been in China. On one of my blog posts, I'm going to write out every country that I've met someone from. It blows me away that this is really my life.

On Sunday, we ventured out to the Summer Palace which was absolutely stunning. The Summer Palace is kind of like the White House of China. It's where the emperors lived when they still had them. It was built in the 1800's and the architecture was absolutely beautiful. All parts of it, from the buildings, to the Pagoda in the background, to the lake, to the gazebos, to the snow-covered mountains as the backdrop, made me giddy. It was about twenty degrees Fahrenheit but I didn't care. It was wonderful and I am so glad that we got to walk through it.

After leaving the Palace, Megan and I indulged in some Subway. It was so very American and wonderful. I will never take food for granted ever again. We took the Metro back to our hostel and lounged around a little bit before going back to the same hostel from the night before and hanging out with the same people that were there.

Bright and early Monday morning, we were relieved to find that our tour was not a scam. A tour guide, a driver, and little van picked us up. First, we went to a tea house in Bejing. I am not really into tea, but my, oh my, that tea was good. In particular, there was this tea made of fruit and flowers that I thought was to die for and I wish I could have bought some. Lucky me, Megan did so that we can have tea parties when we get home :) The next stop was a jade museum. It was really awesome, but also super expensive. Megan bought something small and then we were finally on our way to the Great Wall of China. I'm still in total disbelief that I've actually been there. The scenery was to die for. The mountains were covered in snow, and it will always be remembered as such a wonderful time, clinging to the railing for dear life as the steps were humongous, steep, and covered in ice. Each step might have been our last, seriously, and that thought graced my mind every time I had to go up another. There were so. many. steps. What a better way to die than on the Great Wall of China??

After we got our fill of Chinese history, we went to lunch. It wasn't very impressive, I must admit. But it was free. Our last two stops were a silk factory and a pearl market. I was pearl-ed out from Shanghai and that silk was way expensive. Also, I was SO tired. I only slept for three hours the night before. Beijing is truly the city that never sleeps.

Our last night in Beijing, we decided to be predictable and hang out in the same spot we had been. We made some really good friends there and it was so sad to leave. It's the traveler's curse. To travel in a foreign country says a lot about a person. We connect with these people and have the best chats about life only to never see them again. One of the English guys that we hung out with said something really funny about speaking different languages; "If you speak three languages, you're trilingual. If you speak two, bilingual. If you speak one, you're American." LOL- Sad, but true.

On Tuesday we checked out of our hostel and then walked around Beijing. Our hostel was right beside Tian'anmen Square. It's where the Forbidden City is and also there's a building there that houses Mao Zedong's dead carcass. I kid you not, people. It's even in a glass coffin so you can go in there and stare at his evil, decaying self. Frankly I'm glad that we don't do that in America.

We went back to our old hangout spot one last time and said some final goodbyes before heading to the train station. I have never in my life been so ready to act completely insane in a public place before. I cannot, and will not, ever, ever, ever take a K train in China as long as I live. I'll give you a list of the joys and pleasures of taking the cheap train.

1) This was a 14 hour train ride. The one to Guilin was 23. However, this one was much worse for the fact that since it was "cold" they kept all the doors and windows shut and obviously no one in the entire country can go five seconds without smoking a cigarette. Our entire car was a cloud of smoke. It burned my eyes, my nose, my throat. I briefly thought about just suffocating myself so it could be over with quickly. I hate that everyone smokes in China and there is no escaping it.

2) You have to live in China to understand how filthy it is. People spit/poop/pee everywhere. Even on the trains. I dozed off for a few minutes only to be awoken by someone sawing some serious logs. I look over to find that there is a man laying flat down on the the nasty floor of the train. I gagged and then had the intense urge to drop something on his face so he would shutthefrontdoor up!!!

3) Megan and I had to make an unpleasant venture to the bathroom. Ha, I just laughed typing that. Let me rephrase: Megan and I had to make an unpleasant venture to the hole in the floor of the train that was absolutely covered in urine. If the sight and smell of this debacle doesn't make you absolutely giddy at one in the morning, I don't know what will!

I can't put the pictures by the paragraphs that they correspond to, for some reason. This is us on the way to the Summer Palace! 

A gazebo on the lake at the Summer Palace

Breathtaking backdrop!

My bestie

Dragon love!

Artsy :)

A Godsend.

The place of the the 2008 Olympics, the "Bird's Nest"

The Great Wall of CHINA!

LOL :)

I will never forget this

Beautiful!

20,000 stairs covered in ice!

I promised my Papaw Webb that I would take my blankie to the Great Wall of China. And, I did :) Here you go, Grandpa! I'm not ashamed!

For baby sister <3

When I came home, I had a package from my awesome cousin, Jeremiah! My family is the best. Excuse my nastiness. This was taken as soon as I got off that wretched train!

That is all to my ranting. I came home this morning to news of another Obama term. Disappointed, I was. At least he can't blame the last administration for anything anymore! I'm hoping that something changes and there's an effort on both sides to get along or at least move forward. My view on politics has changed a lot since I moved to China, mostly because I realize that most stuff is not a big deal. The past few days, I've gained a real hatred for the social norms and timelines in America. It's suffocating. I just want to travel the world and live out of a backpack for a few years. Is that so much to ask? This Earth is an AMAZING place. I don't think I can ever get enough of it.