Quite possibly the best purchase I've ever made.

You're welcome for sharing. 

First Bill, now us.

Coolest. Cave. Ever.

And then we climbed another mountain.

(Hill.)

Oh, you know. Things our hotel offers.

Classy.

Water Calligraphy

It's a thing.

Viewzzzz.

See? We made it to the tower.

(So did a bunch of old people, but still.)

Cici + Lauren + Nicole = Champions.

First Mt. Qingcheng, then the world!

The birthplace of Taoism.

Seemed important. 

"Climbing"

Worth it.

The tower we climbed up to.

("Climbed" is a loose term which also includes the half of the mountain we ascended via cable car.)

On the way up Mt. Qingcheng

Yay for visual aids! 

Guilin through the eyes of the Golden Dragon

We got up this morning and enjoyed a breakfast of bacon and an egg. I'm not totally sure why they decided to decided to make this for us as there was an entire buffet of Chinese food available, but since the choices weren't particularly good, we were happy to accept their offering. We were full and happy when All Business Annie met us in the lobby. We had a packed morning ahead of us. I was pleased to see that our van (did I mention we have a whole van just for the two of us?) is called the Golden Dragon, as I felt like it would give us a little extra Chinese luck in making sure everything went smoothly.

The dragon took us to our first destination, Piled Silk Hill. Annie doesn't particularly like the translation as it makes it sound kind of ugly, but she explained that the hill looks like layers of silk all on top of each other, so it's actually a pretty literal translation. For the record though, hill still means 500 steps. We made it to the top which offered some beautiful panoramic views of the whole city. Guilin is a small city nestled between a bunch of mountains ("hills") and rivers, so it was neat to see it all atop a pile of silk. Annie took us down a different way than we came up and hurried us through all of the stands and shops set up along the base – "they're for tourists!" – and back onto the dragon we went.

Our next stop was Reed Flute Cave, about 20 minutes outside of the main city. On the way over, Annie was telling us the story of how it got discovered. Apparently there was an old man who lived in front of the cave, and he used it to house refugees during World War II, but didn't tell the government about it. (You know how governments can be.) I was a little unclear on the details, but at some point he changed his mind and told the government, but of course they didn't believe him. (Classic China, am I right?) They chalked it up to a legend as many people had talked about such a cave but no one had been able to locate it. At this point, Lauren, who was clearly engrossed in the story eagerly asks "Did they ever find it?" …Obviously, Lauren. That's why we're going to visit it now. According to Annie, the old guy's son told the government again in 1959 at which point they decided to believe him? As I mentioned, Annie is all business and not worried about the details so I'm a little fuzzy on the nuances of the story. Ultimately though, Richard Nixon visited it and so now it's famous.

While I'm as much of a fan of stalagmites and stalactites as the next guy, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect when we got there. The natural beauty ended up being incredible, but the fact that it was enhanced by accent lights of all different colors made the experience truly majestic. It was a feast for the imagination – each area had its own scene title and Annie tried to help us see the story in the shapes of the stones. There was for example, some stones that looked light a stage curtain which were lighted in red, and stones behind it were shaped like figures, who Annie told us were the actors. Unfortunately, the curtains were about to close, so we have just missed the show! They're beckoning us to come back in hopes that we might catch it next time – while I highly doubt that will be the case, it was really fun to listen to Annie (as I'm sure she was often ad-libbing) and the cave was truly fantastic.

As my imagination was already working hard, I was quick to jump back into the Golden Dragon for our third stop of the day – Seven Star Park. It's named for the seven peaks of the mountains ("hills") in the park that apparently are arranged in the shape of the big dipper if looked at from above. As I belong to the super fat, I was pretty excited to hear that we would not actually be climbing to any of the peaks, but rather just walking through the park and seeing some of the highlights before lunch. We skipped out on the cave, because Annie told us we already saw a cave and this one is not even natural ("it's for tourists") but otherwise did a pretty good sweep of the park. The most interesting part was probably a wall carved with the highlights of the 5000 years of history of China. A close second was Camel Hill, which is famous because Bill Clinton gave a speech there once? They have a rock commemorating the date and topic, behind which we obviously took a picture. There was a tour group in front of us being really aggressive about pictures, but there were so many of them that they were blocking the rock…we didn't really get why they were standing in front of it. Luckily, ABA stepped in and took care of business. They didn't seem too angry though, since a couple of them snagged pictures of us for themselves. I love being a celebrity in China.

After our time at the park (which apparently didn't take as long as anticipated because "we're young and walk quickly"), we went to the Left Bank Restaurant for lunch. The fact that I could tell you the name of restaurant should indicate one of two things: I've learned Chinese, or it was a touristy restaurant with its name in English as well as Chinese. It was the latter, however, the food was actually pretty good! (We didn't have a choice for where we went for lunch as it was part of the tour. I'm going to go ahead and assert that Cici won in the food department though as she took us to local places.) To add to our meal, we got to meet Lily, the woman who Lauren has been working with forever who set up our whole tour! It was so exciting to finally get to meet her, and made even more so by the fact that she brought us gifts. She got us both beautiful stamps made in Guilin with our English and Chinese names on them! (Her interpretation of my name was slightly different than Ma's but let's be honest – no one's going to be able to read it anyway so I'm cool with it.) She was really sweet and eager to help us in any way she can. Luckily, with ABA on the job, we were good to go. After lunch however, she rolled out as her day was done. Ours, on the other hand, had really just begun.

We spent the afternoon exploring the downtown area of Guilin. We stepped into many shops, talked to many random people who tried to sell us things rather aggressively, and made some excellent purchases. We even crossed an item off of our food list! We got egg tarts for dessert. Weirdly enough, we got them at KFC, which Lauren claims is one of the best places to get them. I think this is the first time I've been to KFC in maybe 10 years, but if egg tarts were on the menu in America, I would be a much more frequent customer.

Although we decided we were good until dinner, we obviously stopped and grabbed some street food while walking around. We got some sort of fried dough covered in a spicy sauce which was definitely worth the 50 cents we paid for it. Although the consequence of this was the fact that we're not particularly hungry for dinner, the benefit is that now we can go get another snack or two and cross something else off our list instead of having a sit down meal.

While wondering around, we found ourselves in a fresh, fresh, fresh open market. I want to emphasize fresh because there were literally live chickens that you could buy…to eat. There were also fish and ducks, and the much less depressing vegetables and fruits. We got out of there pretty quickly and decided we needed to take a break and regroup back at the hotel. On the way, however, we stumbled onto what might be our greatest find in China yet. For a mere 5 yuan (aka less than a dollar) you could take 9 pictures in a photobooth, choose individual frames or backgrounds for each pictures (there were literally 1000s of choices), and take as many shots as you want for each frame. IT WAS THE BEST. Needless to say, I'll be posting our end product as soon as possible. Also, we're definitely planning to go back. At least one more time.

On a high from our awesome purchase, we made our way back to the hotel only to be stopped by a man offering free samples. While we know free sample means "howmuchareyougoingtobuy?" we decided to go ahead and try some nuts. Ten yuan later, we were the proud owners of some delicious peanuts covered in something else delicious, and found ourselves in the salesman's teahouse. He gave us lots of free tea and then tried to pressure us into buying some. (Obviously.) We held fast to what we wanted and didn't buy his "greenteathat'sonlymadeinmyvillage-nocaffeinenochemicals," even though it was good. You just can't try to tell me that you could use one scoop 20 times and serve 6 people with it each time and then tell me I can't buy fewer than 50 grams of it.

We finally got ourselves out of there and made our way back to our hotel, after briefly pretending we were staying at the much nicer Sheraton next door. We've been pretty immobile since but have intentions to go out again soon. We're off to go see what is apparently a waterfall show put on by the famous Waterfall Hotel that's nearby and only happens for 15 minutes a night from 8:30-8:45. Not exactly sure what that means, but I doubt ABA would lead us astray. We don't really feel like moving though, so we're hoping the Golden Dragon magically appears to take us...dragons are magic, so you never know, right? 

We belong to the super fat

Over the course of our time in Chengdu, we became very close with our tour guide, Cici. At least, we were close enough for her to feel comfortable calling us super fat. How did we get there? Let me explain.

We had spent the morning climbing the beautiful Mount Qingcheng. It was about an hour and a half drive away from our hotel, and we left extra early in the morning. On the drive over, we listened to a lot of T. Swift, and some gems that definitely have never been heard outside of our car or anywhere in the US as Cici had believed. They were the best. (If I had access to youtube, I would try to find them to share them with you. A teaser – "No amount of coffee, no amount of cryin', no amount of whiskey – no wine, no, nothing else will do, I've gotta have you you you you you, I've gotta have you." ) We learned about how the mountain was the birthplace of Taoism, as we walked up the first quarter or so of the mountain. People still live and farm in some parts of the mountain, so it is perhaps because of this that it wasn't so much a "hike" as a never ending set of uneven and odd-shaped stairs. We took a cable car up the middle chunk of the hill, which was a great life decision considering how annoying the stairs were. We did, however, climb the last quarter to the top. On our way we saw various temples – it was kind of cool because the monk would ring the gong when people prayed to let the gods know to be listening. Luckily, we didn't get too sidetracked and made it to the top. The peak offered some incredible views, as well as what I would assume is the most holy temple since it's closest to the gods. (Cici was not particularly clear on this nor much other information. Her purpose was to mostly be adorable and get us from place to place. We were fine with it. Actually, that's not entirely true. There were a ton of red ribbons tied around the tree and fence surrounding this temple which Cici informed us were people's prayers to be offered up since not everyone makes it to the top. Love her.)

We were impressed when we noticed the peak was full of a bunch of old people who had not taken the cable car but rather made the whole trek. Typical China though – we've definitely seen old people pushing their own wheelchairs before so this was not all that surprising. After taking some stellar pictures (including one with Cici herself!) we made our way back down and got ourselves all excited for lunch. Cici and Mr. Joe even joined us! We got some spicy tofu, kung pao chicken, awesome eggroll and beef somethings (it was like…an eggroll sandwich filled with delicious meat in a terrific sauce). We were talking to Cici about how China is sending us mixed signals between all of the delicious, cheap food and the incredibly skinny women. She informed us that Chengdu makes people fatter and fatter. When we questioned her logic (noting how skinny she is), she replied "I belong to the fat!" Let me be clear when I say Cici belongs to no such thing. Both by way of trying to console her and because we had all just shared in a large meal (of which Cici did eat a large portion), we told her that if she's fat we must be obese. She looks at us and replies "If I am fat, then in my city, you are super fat!" We started cracking up uncontrollably (mostly because even if we are super fat, we were killin' it going up that mountain and she was definitely struggling at some points), and she continued "don't ask me to go to hell, but it's true!!!!" We didn't stop laughing for a majority of the way to our next destination, and have since been referring to ourselves and others who we deem worthy super fat.

Our next stop was the Dujiangyan Irrigation System. It's been operating for more than 2000 years. Initially, I wasn't particularly excited to see it however it ended up being really impressive. We walked across this awesome rickety bridge to get to where the water splits with half going to Chengdu and half to one of the main rivers (the one that's not the yellow river. No idea what it's called. Oops.) We then walked along the river into this beautiful park. We opted to walk rather than take a bus because 1. We like walking and 2. We wanted to prove to Cici that we shouldn't belong to the super fat – maybe merely the regular fat. To be fair though, I was incredibly excited when I realized that we could exit the park at the other end and didn't have to walk all the way to the top where we began, so maybe the 'super' is necessary.

We had realized on our way home that the travel agency had not told Cici the correct flight information so when she dropped us off after the seeing the irrigation system we had to say our goodbyes! We were sad to see her go, but eager to continue our adventures.

The problem with not having a tour guide in a city you've never been to before that's not particularly known for anything other than what you've already seen however, is that you have find ways to entertain yourself. We took advantage of the lobby's free wifi and I "looked up things to do" (aka uploaded pictures to my blog). Eventually, we came across a list of top ten things to do in Chengdu, many of which we hadn't yet seen. We wrote down some of our top choices, and headed out to explore a bit and grab dinner. We stumbled through some random market and then decided on hot pot for dinner – an item on my food list! I'm going to be honest – I struggled in the chopstick department. Hot pot is essentially fondue – we had a spicy Sichuan broth and a less spicy typical broth in the middle of the table into which we poured and cooked various meats and veggies. How one is expected to find said items once they're submerged in the broth with chopsticks alone is beyond me. The waitress noticed my dismay and directed me to the ladle. We somehow also got free dessert, so Lauren picked us out some pumpkin…things. They were pretty good. At the end of the meal we were offered the receipt or a Sprite. I didn't really understand what was happening but Lauren went for the receipt. It turned out to be a solid decision as the receipt was actually some sort of scratch off and we won 5 yuan? Unclear, but definitely made our nights.

This morning, we had a leisurely morning and slept in until 8 o'clock. I know – we were feeling wild. We got a breakfast worthy of a super fat, and then headed out to try to find the 'top ten of Chengdu.' We started with a park that was about a 10 or 15 minute drvie away. It was beautiful, although the water in the lake was definitely not a color that seemed safe for swimming. We walked around for awhile and then decided to wander the streets. We stumbled into what was labeled a "curio art market" that ended up being a bunch of stands with people selling all sorts of random and exciting things. We found some goodies and then decided to try to hit item number two on our list – the Mao museum. We had an incredibly difficult time snagging a taxi and when we finally got one, he kicked us out because he didn't know where this museum was. Rude, and not a good sign. After desperately running (okay, walking casually) up, down, and across the street we got into taxi number 2 – sadly, it seemed the Mao museum just didn't exist. As it was approaching lunchtime, we instead asked him to take us somewhere good to eat…he literally drove us back to the park where we started. It was the first of many circles we made today.

Although bummed that we paid to backtrack, I didn't let it bring me down as the miscommunication had cost me less than a dollar. We obviously couldn't find the restaurant for awhile and ended up circling around a bunch of people playing Mahjong and watching us while sipping their tea for awhile but eventually made it. Lunch was alright – the dan dan bien noodles (the specialty noodles of the area) were really good, but overall the meal was not our best.

After eating, we again tried to brave a taxi. By this time we had given up on Mao (I'm convinced the museum doesn't exist), and decided to hit the next place on the list. The taxi driver brought us to the old street we'd been to two days before. We again showed him the street we wanted and he called it in to his company to see where it was. Lauren had gathered that they were responding and saying that it wasn't a shopping area as the article we read had claimed, but rather that it was a school. Clearly we could have done better finding a list. He then said he knew what we were talking to and drove us to an incredibly sketchy street. I was not looking to get out of the taxi, so I had Lauren instruct him to drove back the way he came because I had spotted something interesting on the street on our way over.

We circled back and ended up at a more high-end shopping area with a lot of jewelry and art stores. We walked around for awhile, taking full advantage of the free tea samples all of the tea houses were offering us as we walked by so that we didn't have to buy any water. Once we crossed through the shopping area we found ourselves back at the corner we had originally caught the taxi at. We were totally unsurprised. It was bound to happen considering the rest of our day. We decided to explore the area for awhile. The best thing that came out of the wandering we did for that hour and a half was that Lauren now officially has a ginger collection, i.e. she purchased more than one shirt that has a picture of a girl with red hair on it. Strange, but true. We started in this little boutique that had a bunch of fun shirts on sale. Unfortunately, being super fat, the only shirt that fit me in a particularly flattering way (not even according to just me – the lady working at the store agreed) said something that was somewhat incomprehensible – the only thing that was clear was JUSTIN BIEBER at the top. Not happening. Lauren made her purchase – a shirt was a hipster redhead on it – and we headed further down the street. We ended up in a more sketchy shop which was awesome because it had a shirt with a redhead with an excessive amount of freckles and pigtails. Obviously, I encouraged Lauren to buy it. Not exactly sure why, but she acquiesced. Thus, the collection was born. I, on the other hand, made an equally savvy purchase and bought a shirt with a zebra on it. I normally have a lot of buyer's remorse after a purchase, but this zebra has sent me nothing but good vibes so I'm feeling great about it.

We made our way back to the hotel and had about an hour to kill before Mr. Joe was due to pick us up to fly to Guilin. We went to go try one of the steamed buns Cici had recommended and they were pretty whatever – the ones we had in Beijing were much better. Then, we found ourselves in an adorable little coffee shop and got a vanilla and coffee flavor thing which turned out to be solid investment. We made it back to our hotel and waited around for Mr. Joe who ended up being 20 minutes late! Luckily, we made it to the airport with a ton of time to spare. We spent a lot of the flight speculating how our tour guide would be able to top Cici.

We got Annie. We haven't decided how we feel about her yet. She's older than Cici, and definitely more knowledgeable, which is good. She could be less fun though. We'll see how it goes. We got to the hotel safe and sound. Our hotels have definitely gotten worse in quality as the trip has gone on (especially when comparing to the Regent in Beijing which we pretended we were staying in), but even though the Eva Inn doesn't have a safe and had a rude policeman bring up our bags for us who told us our tip wasn't big enough, the A/C is doing a fantastic job, and it's in a great location, so we're happy. Annie's spoiling us – we're not leaving until 9 tomorrow –  so we're ready to get a good night's sleep and are excited to see Guilin tomorrow!

Pretty tea!

More to come later. Hopefully this is working or this would be an incredibly awkward set of posts as well as a large waste of effort. 

No, but really. We love food.

We love food. Especially homemade lollipops in fun shapes!

The lesser red panda.

Pensive Panda. Sorry I'm not sorry for putting up another one.

...hopefully. I'm taking a great leap of faith by assuming these are working.

Just another panda pic.

I couldn't resist. Also, I decided to go in chronological order after the first one so this fit in the timeline.

Mao can see you.

Always.

We're champions of the world!

How great?

With Ma and Ares on the Great Wall!

Note how adorable Ma is.

Scrawled on the wall of Helen's In Beijing. Forever Duke.

Ooey, gooey delicious heart attack.

Yes, please.

College? So yesterday. (Or like, two weeks ago.)

Corn ice cream = winning

Us with our new best friend

The mock water town at the Summer Palace

Please enjoy a panda picture and/or a blank post if this doesn't work.

Panda-monium!

This morning we headed out bright and early, hoping to miss the heavy Chengdu traffic. I think Cici miscalculated though, as we ended up right in the thick of it. I don't think I've yet gone into detail about how petrifying traffic in China is – the stinkin' Lincoln would not do well. If you're a pedestrian trying to cross the street, the cars will pay you no mind, even if you dutifully wait for the green man to tell you to cross. I would say that this leads me to believe that pedestrians don't have the right of way, but that would imply that there's some logic to how traffic works around here. Lights seem to be mere suggestions, and I'm not sure why blinkers are even put on the cars. It seems that they like to weave through lanes just to see if they can fit, and if they can't they just blare their horn until someone moves. If you lose in a battle for a lane, no worries! Just hover between lanes, or even onto the other side of the road! The sidewalk is sometimes also fair game. The most important thing to remember is that you're always right, so definitely lean on your horn as heavily as possible when someone else is doing something that is preventing you from doing what you want, regardless of if law dictates it is you who should be changing your behavior. The best part is the fact that there are no seatbelts in taxis and no helmets on bikes or mopeds. Small children casually hold onto their parents as they weave through all of this nonsense, and yet, it all somehow all works. Although I watched a car drive over an arrow pointing in the opposite direction and was in a taxi that lost a lane battle to a bus, we've somehow made it out alive and well. This morning was no exception, and so we soon found ourselves at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.

The research base is a big park full of giant pandas, red pandas, and peacocks (not sure how they fit in, but there were a lot of them) of all ages and sizes. Although pandas are incredibly lazy (they love eating and sleeping, but let's be real – who doesn't?), incredibly high maintenance to keep alive and happy, and some people don't like them, they're totally adorable and I loved getting up close to them. I have some great eating videos and a couple of solid pictures. This was the first place that was mostly full of foreign tourists (as opposed to tourists from other parts of China as was the case in Beijing), which sort of surprised me because I feel like if one was to go to China, one would more likely go to a city like Beijing, but I suppose pandas draw a big crowd.

[Anne, if you're reading this, please be aware that given the internet capability I would insert a picture of pandas so adorable that you would reconsider your position.]

After ooh-ing and ahh-ing over all sorts of pandas putting bamboo on themselves so they didn't even have to move while they ate, we moved on to the red pandas. These little guys were cute too, but I feel like they lead lives parallel to celebrity siblings – whenever people meet you they're constantly comparing and you probably come up a little short.

[Imagine yourself trying not to compare the red pandas to the giant pandas…and failing.]

We hovered around the red pandas for a bit to boost up their confidence and then moved on to watch the informational video about the purpose of the base. Luckily, we stepped in right in time to learn all about the different methods of semen collection used when male pandas can't find the right lady panda for them. We also learned about how sometimes mama pandas accidentally hurt or kill their young when they're born because they don't know what it is. It seems a bit illogical that an animal so lazy, incompetent, and picky has been able to survive for 8 million years and wonder why we're helping them, but then I review my adorable pictures, and remember.

We left the base to continue our adventure, heading to Kuan Zhai Lane. Cici explained to us how the street is hundreds of years old, and until about our grandparents' generation was purely residential, but the government bought the majority of it to preserve it and commercialize it. There were three families who refused to move out who still live there today. I would have, too, if I were them because it was a really cool area! There were all sorts of artisans set up along the sides of the street making various crafts and foods. Cici bought us some spring rolls to try that were covered in a spicy sauce. Chengdu is in the Sichuan province of China, which is known for its spicy food. It was delicious!

 

We then stumbled upon and old man who I thought was making crafts out of glass, but it turned out he was making beautiful lollypops out of sugar! Obviously, we had to partake. There was a wheel you have to spin to see which shape or animal you get. The first time I spun, I was hovering between a peach and a chicken – Cici tells me that the chicken is the best one but was unable to tell me why. The old man had me spin again and I landed on a mouse, so right before my eyes, he made me a mouse lollypop. It was so intricate! Lauren spun and landed on a peach as well, but I think the old man thought they were boring because he decided to make her a bird instead. I got some of it on tape. It was incredible to watch, and very sugary to lick.

[Lauren's lollypop is prettier than mine but mine has more character because I actually landed on it.]

We walked around for awhile, looking into various stores and stands, and then Cici led us to a restaurant for lunch. She told us we would each get 13 "snacks" which ended up being little sample plates of all different foods. The most interesting dish was the lung (which was sort of rubbery but not bad), and the most tasty were the dan dan noodles which the region is famous for.

[I have a picture from when I thought all of the food was in front of us, but it turned out more was coming. This country is sending me mixed signals since the food never stops coming but the people are all stick thin.]

After wrapping up at Kuan Zhai, we moved again to Jinli Old Street. Jinli is similar to Kuan Zhai, except that Jinli is a replica of an old street which was built in 2004.  It was again filled with interesting shops, knick knacks and food. We enjoyed glasses of chrysanthemum tea (with the actual flowers in the glass as opposed to some sort of tea bag) at an actual tea house which was pretty cool. Cici also told us about how they sell rabbit head as a dish here and was trying to encourage us to try it. I'm not quite sure I'm ready for that yet, but we have a couple of more days left in Chengdu so we'll see what happens…

Our tour for the day was officially done after Jinli but Cici had Mr. Joe drop us off in the downtown area of Chengdu and told us where to go to walk around for the afternoon instead of just dropping us off at the hotel because she's wonderful like that. We were overwhelmed by the first market we went into – it was similar to the pearl market in Beijing but much more crowded and less clean. We made our way over to the center of downtown and spent a solid hour looking for the baked goods shop Cici told us about (even though we weren't particularly hungry) – it ended up being right under our noses the whole time. It turned out she was referring to the bakery where she got us the cake from yesterday, but the floor it was on was full of delicious goodies. We settled on a Mr. Waffle, because what could be more appetizing than a waffle with ice cream on it? It turned out to be pretty good but a little weird as the ice cream tasted a bit salty? And a bit like butter? We didn't really question it, but I probably will refrain from further Mr. Waffles in the future.

We headed back to the hotel where I was hoping to go to the gym (as a result of the aforementioned Mr. Waffle.) We followed the signs to the gym on the 7^th floor only to end up at what seemed like a balcony and/or fire escape. We wondered if we had missed it but then clearly saw a sign pointed towards this balcony. We stepped outside and found ourselves at staircase with a giant picture of a woman working out at the top of them. As this was a promising sign, we climbed the stairs. We stepped into the "gym" to find a single treadmill, some free weights, and one machine. It was obviously deserted and we were definitely the only people to have ever come in here. I tried to turn on the treadmill only to realize it wasn't plugged in. I plugged it in and it still didn't work. Strugz. We decided to go see if we could find somewhere to get massages instead, since having someone work knots out of your muscles while you do nothing is pretty much the same thing as working out those muscles yourself, right? We ended up finding a place that did a 100 minute foot massage for 80 yuan (~13ish dollars), which is great, but I really don't like people touching my feet in general and didn't think I could take 100 minutes of it so I headed back to the hotel while Lauren indulged.

It's currently raining outside, and rain really deters me from moving, so I think we're going to watch a movie in the hotel or something. Maybe I'll even spend some time trying to figure out if the internet here is stable enough and fast enough to upload some pictures!

Bye Bye, Beijing!

These past 4 days have been a whirlwind of activities – as much as I'm sure we missed a couple of things here and there, we hit everything major and I think got a pretty local taste of the city as well.

As of this morning, we had one major area we had to hit – Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. We walked over from the hotel and sadly didn't stumble upon anything delicious to eat for breakfast as we had every other day. We had to prioritize though, so on we trudged. The square was centered under a gigantic picture of Mao; it was a not so subtle reminder that China is always watching. It actually seemed that China was watching us in particular, as we were asked to be in an unreasonable number of pictures this morning. I got so used to it that at one point, when someone asked me to take a picture of them, it took me until the camera was dangling in front of me to realize that they didn't want their friends to know they met a real, live American.

[Lauren had me take a picture of her with one of our fans so we could show people that stuff like this does actually happen. Unsurprisingly, she chose to capture the moment she shared with a weird, middle-aged dude who didn't even smile in the picture as opposed to the fun English teachers who seemed barely proficient themselves, the old woman I've dubbed Mama China, or the many other less strange options.]

Obviously, the weirdest thing about Tiananmen was the fact that there was no indication or acknowledgement that a massacre ever occurred there. I didn't want to think about it too much because I felt like Mao's picture would know and I would end up getting arrested, but considering the square such a positive place and that they hold so many celebrations there is so weird.

We crossed the street to head into the Forbidden City – before entering we noticed two very important things. While trying to find tickets to enter the city, we found there was a kiosk that was selling tickets to enter the square, which was weird as we had just come from there without paying anything. Oops? We also noticed the same woman who was climbing the Great Wall yesterday in heels (who I took a picture of) sitting uncomfortably outside of the Forbidden City. We knew it was her because she was wearing the same outfit – Lauren promises me that this is a thing. I'm guessing that if she's in Beijing visiting she's likely seriously regretting her singular outfit choice.

[I took another picture of her in an incredibly obvious way. Imagine yourself scrolling down to the other imaginary picture of her, making a comparison to confirm for yourself what we already know, and laughing in disbelief.]

We entered the city and it was beautiful, but frankly a bit redundant. There were some pretty important people there it seemed, however, when Lauren asked the hired Chinese bodyguards who they were protecting they told her that they didn't know, but they think he's from Africa. Who knows? Perhaps we saw someone really important. We decided to spend most of our time in the city outside the beaten path though, after trying to get up close to see a temple and nearly being trampled by tourists. Not worth it.

[We didn't take all that many pictures in the city, but there are a couple of nice ones you could imagine yourself appreciating.]

We ended up finishing the city earlier than expected and had some time to kill before meeting up with Lauren's other friend from the basketball team who she met at Wash U. for lunch. We decided to head back to the Pearl Market and try to get some good deals, and grabbed a small breakfast because we really can't go very long without eating.

This will likely not come as a surprise, but today I reminded myself that I love to haggle. Since I can now count in Chinese and learned to ask "How much does this cost?" I felt prepared going in. I had a great time and made a few purchases that I'm pretty excited about. Lauren described me as ruthless, but she drove a pretty hard bargain herself, so I think this might just be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

[I have a picture of the two of us in front of a big, allegedly famous black pot from the Forbidden City. I haven't decided if this would be funny or drag out an already tired cliché too long.]

With our purchases in tow, it was off to lunch. We met Tyler at the same subway station that we had met her other friend at the other night for duck. We went to a restaurant that was nearby and it was delicious. I didn't take any pictures of the food, but there was a lot of t and it was all delicious. We got salmon sashimi, some beef with peppers and onions, an omelet sort of thing, some beef with various sauces, sushi, eggs with pork and bbq sauce, and possibly something else. We were talking a lot about the differences between the United States and China – everything from safety, to real estate prices, to gun laws, to partying habits. This last one was surprisingly interesting as we learned that 1. Shotgunning is not a thing in China. (Well, apparently now it is – Tyler said he brought it back from Wash U. when the team went to visit.) and 2. That Stan, Lauren's other friend, had decided to study abroad and go to Europe purely as a result of the party he had attended while at Wash U. Strange, but true. Who knew that a single college party could be so eye-opening? I also liked when we were comparing foods and Tyler talked about how his favorite American food was Taco Bell. He was nice enough to pay for our meal, and make sure we headed out in time to catch our flight!

[The picture I would have put here would have been an adorable one of Lauren and Tyler. You would note the large height difference between the two and realize part of the reason why Tyler is such a good basketball player.]

I really enjoyed meeting all of Lauren's friends – aside from minor communication difficulties, we all got along great and it gave us the chance to experience the city in a much more personalized way – I felt a little like a local. It will like be very different than this coming week where we'll be tourists with a capital T, complete with our own tour guide and driver.

Once we checked out of the hotel and got to the airport, we were still a little nervous that the company with which we booked our tour didn't actually exist and that the whole thing was a scam, however, as I wrote the majority of this sitting on a plane, I am fairly certain that this is not the case. Although the plane was a little late, the ride was a little bumpy, and the food was a little rough, we made it!

We were met at the airport by our tour guide for part for Chengdu, Cici. She was not at all what I expected – she appears to be a 20-something and was dressed super casually. She seems very friendly, and even bought us a piece of cake – we love her already! She brought us out to our driver, Mr. Joe, who brought all of us to our new home for the next couple of days. Mr. Joe does not drive some sort of taxi or van as one would expect from a tour, but instead, what I have a feeling is his personal Honda Accord. As I one day dream of owning an Accord (a dream which I am not ashamed of), I was pretty excited and weirdly alright with the fact that the only thing verifying that these people were legit was a red piece of paper Cici was holding at the airport. Since our hotel reservation did in fact exist, I am once again secure in the feeling that our tour is actually happening and additionally that we are going to learn all about what Chengdu has to offer from a guide who will likely be more stylishly dressed than I am.

Although we've just arrived, we're about to go to sleep. We need to be at our best for when our adventure officially begins tomorrow in a way only the best Chinese adventure can: by seeing some pandas!

Jia You! To the Wall and Beyond

Continue to imagine the pictures. They're beautiful. If you want to see them, buy me an internet package and then I'll be able to post them. ;)

Last night, we went out for dinner and drinks with Lauren's friend, Stan, who she met at WashU when his basketball team from a university in Beijing came to visit – she was their tour guide or something. Regardless, they kept in touch. I was eager to meet one of her real Chinese friends, mostly to see that they actually exist. You can never really know with Lauren...

Stan met us at Quan Ju De – this restaurant is apparently the most famous and best place to get Peking Duck in Beijing, the city's specialty dish. I had never before eaten duck so I was excited to give it a try. When you first walk into the restaurant you have to decide whether you want a whole duck or a half of one – everything in China is for the whole table so it's a collective decision. We decided to go for the half so that we could get other sides to go with it as well. It ended up being a ridiculous amount of food and all so delicious – we got eggplant in a bbq sauce with onions, a vegetable, which turned out to be loofah, which is hilarious and strangely delicious, and a pea cake, apparently a traditional dessert. It was alright but I probably wouldn't order it again. We also got some beer, because Stan is Lauren's fun friend. She even drank some – I was very impressed. She probably just partook because they randomly served the beer in wine glasses? Not sure why, but it definitely seemed classier. The duck itself was phenomenal – they first brought out the skin, and then the main meat, and then half of the head to proof that it was truly a "half duck" and finally a broth made from the bones. All incredible (except for the head which I didn't venture to try to ingest as I'm pretty sure was a joke and not to be eaten? Funny, China.), although sadly, I got forked again. So many chopstick struggles in my life. It's getting to be embarrassing.

[After you see this picture, you'll probably want to eat your computer screen, but please don't. At least read the rest of the post first.]

[You'll likely feel a pang of disappointment if you've never personally indulged in a glass of beer out of a wine glass after seeing that it can be done.]

I was worried that Stan and I would have nothing to bond over and that it could be weird, but luckily, since he's a basketball player we were able to talk about Duke. He also just got back from studying abroad in Vienna, so we were doubly bonded by our discussion of Europe, specifically Oktoberfest. By this point, Stan had clearly established he was fun, so we all decided to head out to a nearby bar together after dinner.

We headed over to a bar called Helen's, which literally could have been any bar in America. It's where most of the international students hang out, so there was a lot of English. The walls were written all over; I felt extra at-home when I noted the following message scrawled across it in nice, big letters:

[What did I see? Was it a. I <3 Nicole, b. USA USA USA, c. DUKE, or d. With love all the way from NYC]

After awhile, Stan's friends Sean and Max met up with us to help ring in Stan's birthday which was today. Sean is Stan's good friend, and Max is Sean's roommate who's living in Beijing and working illegally with a traveler's visa. The police had stopped by his job earlier that week and made copies of everyone's passports. He's worried that he might have to pay a large fine, but I'm fairly certain that he's going to be jailed and/or deported. Oh, well. At least he bought us some beer before he's forced out of the country against his will! They also bought some sheep kidney which they encouraged us to try…it was the first thing I've had that was gross. Ew. Seriously. Don't try it. Stan didn't want to go out "too hard" because he had to wake up early the next morning, by the end of the evening he was trying very diligently to persuade Lauren to do a tequila shot. While I was in full support of this decision, Lauren was having none of it, but I must say – she did have a beer or two.

[Don't worry, I obviously have photographic evidence of this momentous event.]

[A picture of the group as taken by our new friends from Cote d'Ivoire. Max speaks French and had asked them to our picture…he got weirdly excited when he asked where they were from – apparently someone important on the "football team" he's a fan of is from there? Whatever – further proof that we make friends wherever we go.]

It was an overall hilarious evening. Stan and his friends were great and I hope he had a wonderful birthday!

Today was our Great adventure! We were up bright and early to meet Lauren's old teacher and friend, Ma, and her boyfriend, Ares, who had kindly offered to take us to the Great Wall! We headed over to where they live to grab breakfast and wait for them to pick us up. We split a steamed bun and rice dumpling type thing for breakfast; I'm continually impressed by the food.

[I'm getting hungry again looking at the picture, which is weird, because as you'll see we ate an incredible amount of food today.]

While we were waiting, we walked around the area and saw a bunch of adorable dogs, children, and stumbled upon a random dance party. Apparently this is a thing in China. Music was playing and everyone was moderately synchronized.

[A casual morning dance party – these are my type of people.]

It was unclear if anyone in particular was leading or if these were just dances everyone knows, but I liked it and wished I could be a part of it. Do you have to be invited to this sort of thing? Regardless, after Lauren guaranteed me we'd see another one at some point, we left and ended up in McDonald's – it's the first one I've been to in China and it was pretty nice looking! We got chicken sandwiches (not the same as the one in the US) to save for lunch at the wall and waited for Ma's boyfriend to come pick us up.

They are awesome! Ma is this sassy little lady who can't be more than 4' 9'', and she cracks me up. Her English is really good! Her boyfriend, Ares, is very nice and generous but was less comfortable speaking in English, although he definitely understood it. It was about an hour long drive to the wall, which we spent getting to know each other. Ma gave me a Chinese name – Peng Ke Ni. Peng because my last name starts with a P, and Ke Ni is sort of Nicole backwards. It also means cute girl or something to that effect so I'm into it.

We got to the wall around noon and decided to have lunch before climbing it in one of the little touristy restaurants before you enter the wall itself. We got noodles which Ma said obviously weren't as good as the local ones but weren't bad. I had gotten a chopstick lesson in the car. I did surprisingly well although to be fair, noodles are the food of champions for the chopstick incompetents like me. There are just so many of them so you can't ever really miss. I also think that my new Chinese identity really helped me connect with my inner-Asian.

[It will be important to note the distinct lack of fork in the picture once you're able to see it.]

…And then we had a second lunch by splitting one of our McDonald's sandwiches…and then we bought Magnum bars for dessert...we needed to get our energy up for the climb that was ahead! Actually, as much as that was clearly trying to cover up how fat we are, the wall turned out to be a pretty good workout! It was a beautiful as you would imagine it to be, and twice as immense. It got really steep in some places, and yet there were definitely people (as in, more than one person) attempting to wear heels and shuffling along holding onto something or someone for dear life.

[Enough people have taken pictures of or with Lauren and me to justify me taking a picture of a random Asian person embarrassing herself in heels and a dress.]

I, on the other hand, was fully Duke-ed out in a bright pink Duke shirt and a Duke hat, with which I wore some running shorts and sneakers so I was good to go. We climbed around for a little over an hour. We were getting pretty tired at one point, but a little girl had her father by the hand and came by us screaming "Jia you! Jia you! Jia you!" continuously, which I learned essentially means "You can do it!" but literally means "Add oil." We all took her message to heart and got inspired to carry on; it was definitely worth it.

[Ares works for a company with a lot of international clients, so he's been to the wall many times. He knew all of the great photo spots; imagine some beautiful mountains with a wall that you can see from outer space running through them. Or just google it, but be sure to come back once the pictures get up and compliment me on my photography skills.]

I was pretty antsy about going down – I don't mind the climb but the descent always makes me a little nervous that I'm going to fall on my face – but luckily we stumbled upon another option! There was this incredibly unsafe looking tram-thing that took you down for a mere $5 – how could we say no? On our way to the tram, we ran into what had to be the coolest photo –op of the trip thus far.

[Lauren and I decided that it was time to whip out the peace signs. And/or that we're champions of the world. I haven't decided which picture I'm going to put in yet because they're both gems.]

[Ma insisted we do some solo shots as well. Submit a guess as to what pose I struck that resulted in literally every single Asian person with a camera in the area to take a picture of me. Hint: it's my go-to.]

While we were buying tickets for the tram, Ares disappeared and returned with dessert number 2 – some Beijing popsicle. It was delicious. I think it tasted like banana but no one really knew for sure.

I was unnecessarily excited about the tram ride, so decided to take a video of the whole experience with my flipcam. I'm hoping to be able to post it here at some point – it's probably worth your 3 minutes and 55 seconds to watch

.

Our tickets said they included free admission to the bear museum. I didn't quite see the correlation between bears and the Great Wall of China, but I'm all about free so we decided to go look for it once we got off. It turned out that there are literally cages full of bears in the middle of this complex. Why? The world may never know.

[You will likely be confused by the picture of the bear in the middle of the post about the Great Wall even though you knew it was coming. It just begs so many questions…]

We left the Wall satisfied and tired. Ares had a Linkin Park cd which we listened to for the majority of the ride back – not sure how/why he had that / how/why Linkin Park seems to be so popular outside of the US (they seemed to love them in Spain as well) but it happened and I liked it.  Ma and Ares were supposed to join us for dinner, but unfortunately Ares got called into a meeting (on a Saturday? Do better, China.) and was unable to come so it was just the ladies! While Ma changed (Lauren and I had to deal with looking like bums the whole evening), we hung out with Ares back at McDonald's. Lauren acted as translator between us so we were all almost able to have a somewhat fluid conversation. I really hope it's clear how impressive her Chinese ability is. Were it not for her distinctive ginger locks, I'd probably forget that she isn't actually Chinese. It's awesome to be traveling with someone who makes it such that I don't need to put in any effort to learn the language because she already knows it. That being said however, I'm continuing to try to expand my limited vocabulary!

Ma came back about a half hour later looking adorable and rocking the new bag Lauren had gotten her as a gift. She took us to a street in Old Beijing called Luonguo Street for dinner and to walk around in after. It was a really cool looking pedestrian street, although since traffic laws don't appear to exist in this country cars would pop through every so often. Vendors were lined up along the street selling all sorts of random things (including his & her shirts, socks, sample perfumes, and more!), and the street was sprinkled with shops, restaurants and bars. We went to restaurant all the way at the end of the road where the waitresses all wore Angry Birds shirts and matching pants as their uniforms. When I saw that, I knew it was going to be authentic and delicious. We ordered some pork and onions wrapped in tofu, a cabbage and garlic salad sort of thing, a spicy soup with fish and these weird jelly-like noodles, and some spicy chicken and peanut stuffed fluffy bread things. We ate so much food today, but it was definitely worth it. ALSO, I handled my chopsticks like a champ. Ma is super complimentary and kept telling me how good my very, very, very, very limited Chinese is and that I definitely should learn the language – I think her confidence boost gave Peng Ke Ni the ability to wield chopsticks like a pro. I'm trying to go forkless from here on out. We'll see how long it lasts without someone as awesome as Ma there to puff up my ego.

[So much goodness. I wish you could taste pictures.]

After dinner, we walked around the street for awhile and headed back to the hotel to have a relaxing end of the night and turn in early. We're hoping to get up and go see Tiananmen tomorrow and meet up with one more of Lauren's friends (she's just sooo popular) before leaving Beijing and starting our tour of Chengdu, Guilin, and Yangshuo tomorrow evening!

Part 二 (That’s Chinese for two):

This post has been frustrating me for a day and a half now. It won't let me put in pictures, so you're going to have to imagine them and I'll add them in later when I get home. Get creative.

This morning, Lauren woke up at like 3AM; I am clearly better at adjusting (in sleeping habits as well as in life in general) and woke up at 7:30. We tried to take care of Lauren’s phone, but since she set it up in Shanghai they couldn’t help her unless she had her passport which she didn’t, so she was directed to “a place where they sell newspapers” so she could get a new number. I followed the majority of the conversation from which I derived I now speak Chinese. (Lauren attributed it to context clues and the fact that she said passport in English, but we decided to agree to disagree.)

We then stopped at a stand appropriately named “Beijing Breakfast” where I crossed off the third item on Lauren’s list of foods I need to eat (steamed buns and dumplings being the first two). Unclear as to what it’s actually called, but it is labeled on the list as “crepe thing”. It was a sort of egg crepe filled with crunchy fried dough, chicken, vegetables and lots of spices and it was SO GOOD. I couldn’t get over how delicious it was, and it cost less than a dollar! We also got a sort of egg biscuit sandwich to split – definitely not as good as the crepe thing.

[Picture of me eating - it's as attractive as it sounds.]

In retrospect, perhaps a picture of the item itself rather than one of me looking super cute while eating it might have been a better idea. Oops.

[Picture of me with a giant teapot statue. I'm positioned so that I'm pouring the tea - it's very well done. You would be impressed.]

And then we found a fun statue.

We got Lauren’s phone working and then were off on our next adventure, and this time we were taking the subway! After seeing a woman in a shirt that said “I love your outfit, you whore!” I got extra excited about what sorts of things I might see on the subway. After seeing a couple both in blue stripes, Lauren told me about his and hers shirts. This is apparently a thing in China. If anyone hoping to date me in the future is reading this, let me know, and I’ll definitely pick us up a pair. We later found his and hers keychains, so the opportunities to show just how love one is seem to be pretty endless.

We eventually made our way to the Summer Palace which put the Temple of Heaven to shame in terms of size. This place was gigantic! We started by walking through a beautiful street modeled after a town. It was full of little shops. We ended up buying some calligraphy from an awesome old dude who told us his name about 100 times (literally at the end of every broken English sentence he said), but I don’t remember it and his business card is in Chinese. Instead, here’s a picture:

[Picture of us with an awesome old Chinese guy. He might be Confucius.]

We’re basically best friends.

[Pretty scenery!]

The area we were walking through was beautiful. We probably just should have paid for the one attraction rather than for the entire Palace, since we ended up taking a random boat tour off of the street, but it’s fine. We had fun. It was kind of confusing though because they made us get off of one boat and onto another one, which then dropped us off in a random, different part of the palace and told us there wouldn’t be a boat to take us back where we started. We just rolled with it.

[Just boatin']

Fun on the boat tour!

We were hungry again after our boat tour. I noticed a ridiculous looking ice cream bar in a cooler we walked by; Lauren assured me she had eaten it before and that it was weirdly delicious. Obviously, we bought one.

[Literally - ice cream shaped like a piece of corn]

Yep. It was corn ice cream, and yep. I loved it.

[Giant tower with many stairs]

The main tower we probably should have climbed and seen up close, but we ended up being plagued by an unreasonable amount of stairs today, so I’m happy we just saw it from across the lake.

We left the Palace and decided to head back to the hotel for lunch. Since we again decided to leave out of a different entrance than we came in, we needed some form of public transportation to get back to the subway station. We ended up taking one of those bike carts, which means we have officially taken just about every form of transportation possible within the past day and a half or so. Once back on the subway, however, we randomly decided to get off and check out Peking University. It was a beautiful campus filled with a lot of nice parks and green spaces to hang out in. It was pretty big so we wandered around for awhile.

[Peking University Entrance Sign - you could probably Google this.]

[Academic building. I bet you could find this as well.]

[Then I rode a dragon. I'm very mature.]

We stopped to ride a dragon really quickly before grabbing something else to eat. (Our general POA has been to get lots of little things throughout the day.) We found another thing on this list – this one was dubbed by Lauren as “ooey, gooey heart attack,” so you know I was eager to try it. It’s whatever meat you want (we got teriyaki chicken and egg) wrapped in an ooey, gooey delicious dough, and cooked with the special sauce everything here seems to be cooked in. I can’t actually describe how good it was.

[Mmm. So tasty.]

Don’t you want a bite?

With our stomachs once again satisfied we made our way back to the hotel. Unfortunately we got off at the wrong stop so we had a long and arduous walk home, but it made Lauren feel less guilty about the ooey-gooey-ness, so it was fine.

We went out to dinner and to a bar with Lauren’s friend last night which I’ll update about later and we’re now getting ready to hit the ultimate attraction – the Great Wall of China. I hope it lives up to its name!

"I love your outfit, you whore!" And other fun things we saw and did.

We’ve been in Beijing for about a full day now, and we’ve been on the go the whole time. I never thought I’d want to sit again after the lost day (what we’ve dubbed our travel experience), but I must say, I’m pretty content in my bed right now. We have dinner plans with one of Lauren’s friends (she’s so popular) at 7:30, but until then we’re planning to relax.

After our showers yesterday, we headed out, eager to begin our Chinese Adventure. Although the concierge told us the Temple of Heaven was too far to walk to, after looking at the map for ourselves, we decided it was walkable. Plus, we were very eager to get the blood flowing in our legs again, so off we went!

We had decided to skip lunch, but before entering the Temple, we were hungry for a little pre-dinner snack. For a mere dollar, we got three delicious steamed buns, filled with pork. We dipped them in vinegar for an extra dimension of flavor. They were seriously delicious, but only the beginning of what has already become a deep affinity for the Chinese ability to create incredible foods and sell them at ridiculously low prices.

Unfortunately, Lauren didn’t remember much about the Temple of Heaven, and as I have not yet mastered Mandarin, we didn’t learn a lot about where we were. Wikipedia (not blocked in China, woo!) however, informs me that it was a place visited by emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties for “annual ceremonies of prayer to Heaven for good harvest.” Anyway, it was very pretty.

Us in front of the main temple.

Each of the circles represented one of the nine rings of heaven. (See that? We learned something.) People kept jumping in the middle and posing for pictures; as a result, we only made it to the fourth or fifth ring of heaven. Tough life.

We decided to leave out of a different entrance than we came because we’re spontaneous like that. Around this time, I had my first encounter with a true Chinese style bathroom. The toilet is essentially built into the floor…I don’t really understand why, or what you would do if you have bad knees? So many questions. After experiencing this ‘ceramic outhouse,’ we wandered into the Hong Qian Pearl Market. This is a building with floors upon floors of shopping – it is rife with counterfeits of nearly anything you can imagine. It is a haggler’s dream, but I was little overwhelmed so I didn’t buy anything. I’m hoping to go back though, when I have my wits about me.

After our shopping adventure, we began getting hungry for dinner. We were hoping to get to the Night Market, a pedestrian street filled with all sorts of delicious food. We ended up at a similar market, but not the one Lauren had in mind. It seemed a bit like a tourist trap – they were selling all sorts of weird foods, implying that people should try it just to say that they did. I’m sorry, but if the best thing you have to offer me is sheep penis, you will not be getting my business.

Hungry?

We tried to find a phone store so Lauren could reactivate her Chinese cell phone, but unfortunately by the time we got there the store was already closed. We went into a beautiful hotel next door called The Regent and asked for their business card so we could easily find the store again the next morning, and ended up also asking the concierge for dinner recommendations. As The Regent is connected to a Bentley dealer on one side and a Rolls Royce one on the other, I was worried their recommendations were going to be pretty pricy, however, they ended up directing us to a restaurant where the whole meal cost us 76 yuan (~12 dollars) total…and it was way too much food. Well done, Regent. Lauren claims these dumplings were “the best she’s ever had” and she’s clearly had many, so believe me when I say they were incredible. We started with a vegetable…neither of us knows what it was but it was really tasty! We got one plate of fried dumpings filled with beef and cabbage, and one plate of non-fried filled with lamb and onions. I liked the former better, but as I mentioned, both were delectable.

Important: Please note that I was given a fork. I was so embarrassing with my chopsticks that the waitress literally noticed me from across the room, went into the back, and got a fork for me. It was a a low point…

On our way home we stopped to get a water bottle for the night and ran into our first awesome translation.

Wouldn’t it be ironic for someone to carry around condoms in this wallet?

We went home and went to bed at 9PM. It was awesome and I’m not embarrassed about it at all. 

Unfortunately, this post has too many pictures so I'll have to cut it short here and post the rest later! I know you're on the edge of your seat but try to hold out. ;)

I Can Do Anything.

After traveling for more than a day, it certainly feels that way.
Everything from my hands to my shins (strange, but true) is swollen,
but WE MADE IT! It sort of felt like we were in limbo, not bound by
the confines of space and time. It was eternal, and yet we weren't
really doing anything. We ate, played scrabble, ate, talked about
food, ate, watched a movie, ate, did some crossword puzzles, ate,
watched tv, ate, did a few squats, ate, and attempted to sleep...

Overall the flights had their ups and downs:

Pros:
• I had time to learn how to count from 1-999 in Mandarin, as well as
a couple of other key phrases. (Note: This is not as impressive as it
seems as one need only know how to count from 1-10 and 100 to be able
to do this.)
• Can you say Haagen Dazs? They pulled through on that one. (Definite
highlight.) Actually, the food really wasn't bad in general. My
favorite was probably third dinner, the salmon. (We had dinner one at
home, dinner two on flight one, dinner three on flight two, breakfast
one on flight two, and breakfast two on flight three.)
• They randomly had Hitchcock's Vertigo as a movie selection, which I
was really excited to watch!

Cons:
• My monitor literally stopped working with FIVE MINUTES left in the
movie. I think in-flight entertainment centers have an aversion to me
or are collectively trying to tell me to use my time more
productively, because the same thing happened to me on the way to
Spain. This was at the end of flight one – flight two, the thirteen
hour doozy, was on the same plane in the same seats so I was not about
to have an entertainment-less 13 hours. LUCKILY, I did get to watch
the end of it (two hours later on flight two), and I'm glad I did,
because the last five minutes of that film are pretty key.
• Our seating strategy was a failure (the flight was totally full) and
as a result, I was sitting pretty in the middle seat for nearly an
entire day.
• I asked for water, and they said "water was coming later." I
literally still don't know what that means.

As far as traveling goes though, things definitely could have gone
worse. Going through immigration and customs was surprisingly easy and
quick, so we arrived at the swanky Capital Hotel (pictures to come in
the next couple of days) about 30 minutes ago, earlier than expected.
We're going to shower (so necessary) and go walk around the city!
We're hoping to make it a fairly early night and get into our
rock-hard beds (which Lauren informs me are a staple of China) around
ten or so for a much needed good night's sleep.

Halfway Round the World

I know you've all been waiting in eager anticipation of when I would be back to the blogging world. Although a less clever title than Study Ablog or The Last Suppers, On the Road Again is much more dynamic. It needs to be, because this time I'm not just going to some of Durham's finest eats, or even to Madrid; this time, I'm heading all the way to China.

My best friend from high school and I are gallivanting through the country for the next two weeks and I couldn't be more excited. The summer between senior year and real life seems the perfect time to go, since it's keeping the notion that I'm done with college at bay. (I clearly haven't accepted that yet – I was so tempted to make the subtitle of this blog 'where the blue  devil is she now?' but I resisted.) I also think that now's the perfect time because I'll likely never again get such a great travel partner.

 

Reasons I'm allowing Lauren to tag along:

1. I try to keep a ginger by my side at all times.
2. This will be her fourth time in China.
3. She's nearly fluent in Mandarin. (I had her teach me one key phrase – wei sheng gien zai nar…aka "Where is the bathroom?")
4. Unfortunately, "Where is the bathroom?" is not enough to get me through all of China.
5. She has actual Chinese friends who she promises will buy me dinner.
6. We could make up for the fact that the most recent picture I could find of us together (above) is from 2009 and give the social media driven world proof that we're still friends.
7. There's no one else I'd rather be in East Asia with than with an East Asian studies major. (Or maybe it was a minor? Unclear, but she literally studied Asia in college.) To be fair though, regardless of her choice of study, there's no one I'd rather go on such an exciting trip with than one of my best friends!

Armed with a printed booklet of our messages to each other from 2007 to the present (upwards of 100 pages long), travel Scrabble, some snacks, and our nooks to get us through our long and arduous plane rides I'm hoping to arrive in Beijing unscathed. Our flights sort of suck – we're stopping in Canada and then stopping in Hong Kong and traveling for a total of 20+ hours – but Lauren assures me that Cathay Pacific is a great airline. We were also strategic in our seat selection the other night. By leaving a middle seat empty between us, we're hoping we'll be able to snag the whole row as there seemed to be a lot of empty seats on the flight and the middle seat is clearly a last resort.

Once in Beijing and beyond, I'm unfortunately going to have very limited internet access between a lack of wifi and a lack of democracy. As a result, I'm going to have to email my posts in. This has one very important implication: if I make a typo, then I'm going to embarrass myself and be unable to edit my posts. I know this, and yet, I'm going to try to carry on with this mission anyway. I have two main reasons. First of all, I was jealous that Galonsky has been keeping an awesome blog about his adventures through Asia, and that Lauren has one, too; I'm all about doing what the cool kids are doing. Secondly, I've had so much fun blogging in the past, I knew I couldn't resist trying it again!

 

Away we go!