Beijing Zoo and the Terracotta Warriors (China part 3)

Tuesday, January 7th
Today we woke up late (around 9:30) and ate some breakfast. When we finished packing. We checked out and hit the road. We went straight to the train station to pick up our tickets and then to the zoo. We saw pandas, polar bears, monkeys, Tapirs and much more. One of the monkeys tried to attack me... NOT just once but twice, it was super crazy.

When we finished with the zoo we ate some yummy peppered beef, fried rice and chow mein for dinner. We drank a delicious drink you can only find in Beijing (at least that was what we were told) It tasted like fizzy tang!

We made our way back toward the train station where we walked around for a little while before we officially went in. We got there two hours early so we sat around for a little while before we headed to our gate. When we got there we were surprised that they had already started loading.We found our car and bunk numbers. We are staying with a mother her daughter,and a random chinese man.

We got settled in for the night, ate our birthday cake flavored oreos and drank some weird milk. The nice Chinese man taught us what we needed to know and then we passed out.

Wednesday, January 8th
Nick and I both slept okay.. I was very restricted because I was wearing all of my layers of clothes. We arrived to Xian a few minutes early, when we stopped we headed straight to McDonalds for breakfast. We ate and stayed there for an hour or so and watched the buses come and go. We looked at our directions to figure out which bus we needed to take. When we finished we walked down and jumped on what we THOUGHT was the right bus, however a few stops down Nick and I looked at each other with concerned looks. Concern # 1) There weren't any foreigners on our bus. Concern #2) No one could tell us if we were going to the Terracotta warrior museum.Concern # 3) It just flat out looked like we were going the wrong way.

We were both extremely frustrated because no one could speak English so we jumped off the bus ran across the street and then grabbed another bus back to the train station to start over. When we jumped on the bus we discovered that they did not have change for our money and so we dug through pockets and we were still short.We ended up just putting in what we had and jumped off the bus. We walked around the train station looking for different buses. We found a large parking lot and started wondering around. We saw some nice coach buses and as we got closer the side of them read from train stations to Terracotta warrior museum. Before jumping on I tried to ask how much it was. They wouldn't answer and kept pushing me on which made me extremely nervous. I got upset and blocked the door to the bus until they told me. Finally we jumped on and rode it all the way to the museum. The whole way the bus made frequent stops trying to convince people to jump on. At some point the people who were standing were told to crouch down, when we went through a random check point it made since why. They probably cannot have people standing on the bus. When we Finally arrived to the Warrior museum we had a while to walk to get our tickets then to actually get in to the museum itself. The whole walk we were dodging people and nicely turning them down.

The Warriors were extremely cool. It was worth the trouble trying to get there. Some history about the warriors, they were discovered by some local farmers who were digging a well. When they found some pottery, they notified someone important and they found the warriors. The government took over and they are still uncovering many of the artifacts today. They are filled with warriors, their weapons, horses, carriages, and armor. All made out of clay (Except for the weapons) and some were destroyed because of thieves and fires. It was really hard for me to believe all this stuff was buried because of some important person wanted it to be so when he died (that's what they believe) I think the king made these clay warriors to make people believe he had a large army when infact he didn't.

When we finished we ate at a Dico (Chinese fast food restaurant chain) it was pretty tasty!! As we walked out I bought these adorable handmade items from a very old Chinese lady. They are super cute! As we tried to barter with her a crowd gathered around. Finally we caved, but it was a fantastic find.

We easily jumped on the bus and went back to the stations. We had time to spare so we went shopping and found a Haagan Dazs Ice cream restaurant where we had a giant chocolate ball with ice cream on the inside. They poured hot chocolate syrup on top of the ball and caused it to melt so you could see the ice cream on the inside. It was so delicious. We had to ask for more vanilla ice cream to balance out the chocolatey goodness.

   

 

It was such a tasty dessert, dare I say one of the best I have every had at a restaurant! When we finished we went back to the train station boarded our train, Beijing bound.

Thursday, January 9th
We arrived safely and dieing to take showers and change clothes (we had been wearing the same clothes for 3 days) but we still had to wait till we landed in Seoul late Thursday night.

We did some last minute shopping, saw Chairman Mao's dead frozen body, and then we stopped to eat our last Chinese meal, a must have. Beijing Duck!

 

It tasted pretty good but at this point Nick was running a fever and not feeling well at all. He managed to eat something and then we headed back to our Hostel to pick up our bags and warm up.

We made it to Seoul safely and showered and passed out.

Our Trip to China was definitely interesting to say the least. It is very eye opening to see the differences between all of the Asian countries. China was our least favorite, however we are glad we had the opportunity to visit.

The Great Wall (China Part 2)

Monday, January 6th

We woke up at 6:30am.. Ate breakfast at 7:00 and then at 7:30 we got on our tour bus and started our journey to the Great Wall. Nathan and India were on the tour also. We decided to stick together so we could take pictures of each other.

Two hours later we arrived. When we got off the bus we noticed that snow was falling. I was both excited and disappointed at the same time. Because of the snow you couldn't really see anything (all of the fog and what not). I was hoping for a beautiful clear day to see the Wall, but I can deal with snow.  The fog and snow made taking pictures difficult but it made being there much more romantic.  Everything we saw and experienced was beautiful even if we weren't able to catch it on film.

We took the lift up and planned to toboggan down (like a sled ride) but the snow prevented it they said the brakes wouldn't work.

When we reached the top we decided to walk the shorter path to the right so we would for sure see the old wall. If you walked to the left you had a ways to go up and down stairs to see the old wall.

The Wall was beautiful with the snow even though you couldn't see very far the trees were covered in frost and snow. It had a romantic feel.

 When we reached the end we kept going on the old wall for a little while, it was dangerously fun!

 Practicing Taekwondo on the wall!

Playing cards with India, on the Wall!

In one of the guard towers Nathan really wanted to climb and see what was in the upstairs room. Turns out it was a bunch of nothing!

We then turned around and went back the way we came and then some. We took the lift down again and ate at a Chinese restaurant with our tour group. I (Lauren) REALLY loved the food.

Before and after pictures!

When we got back to our Hostel we sat down for a little bit before we went out to exploring the Wangfujing eating and shopping area again. We were hungry so we decided to try some of the food. I ate lamb on a stick and Nick had some Chow mein noodles that made his tummy upset.

Nick also bought a silk top and later we found the glove to the lady that sold it to us. We ended up taking it back to her and we were blessed because we finally found a good store to buy Chinese goodies.

From left to right (top to bottom) Fish ice cream, Panda cookies with filling, Doritos, Happy Birthday cake flavored Oreo's, C100 drink, Nutella crackers, chocolate.

The Fish ice cream was like what we have in korea except they had chocolate ice cream inside along with chocolate chunks of goodness. YUM!! Everything else was also delicious and lasted us the rest of our trip!

We were suppose to go and watch a Kung Fu show but we had the directions wrong and we couldn't find any wifi and so we decided to go back to our hostel. We sat at the bar/restaurant and ate burgers and played cards.

The end of day two, which in my opinion was the best day of our trip!

Next up, The Zoo and Terracotta Warrior Museum.

Happy Dragon (China Trip Part 1)

Saturday, January 4th  
Our trip started with an unexpected twist. We got to the airport two hours early to find that our first flight had been delayed indefinitely.  They booked us on the next flight to Beijing (no stops) and we got there faster than the original flight plans. We made it to our Happy Dragon Hostel, met our roommates, explored a little and passed out.

 

Sunday, January 5th
We were woken up early on our first full day in China by our roommates getting ready for their Great Wall adventure. I decided to stay awake and check our agenda for the day and make sure everything was in order.

I booked tickets to see an acrobatic show, Our Trip to the Great Wall, and found out some great places to visit and eat!

I got Nick up (only by mentioning OJ) and we ate a terrific breakfast at the Dragon (what we call our hostel)


We met some really cool people a young couple from England, Nathan and India. They sold everything they had and saved money for a long time just to travel for 6 months. She is 19 and he is 23, WOW!! Nick and I were really shocked by their daringness to live life and to seek adventures. We met them during breakfast and friendship struck from there. You can read their travel blog here.

We got dressed in extra warm clothes and went exploring. We walked about two miles to reach our destination Tiananmen Square. I wasn't really sure what to expect and it wasn't until moments ago when I looked it up on Wiki, that I understood what the heck I had seen. We did not walk the square  much today because we went straight into the Forbidden City. It was a lot of walking, but it was beautiful.

Forbidden City was built in 1415 during the Ming Dynasty. It was the imperial palace the complex consists of 980 buildings and covers 7,800,000 sq ft. The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture, and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, and is listed by UNESCO as the collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world. (Wiki)

We got off the beaten path, for some of the roads less traveled and glad we did or we would have never of found the costume booth. We paid almost nothing to dress up and take pictures. The Chinese people thought it was hilarious that foreigners would dress up. We had our picture taken many times.

When we finished exploring the Forbidden city we stopped at the museum shop. We found some items that we have been looking for and purchased them.


If you have ever been to China you know one thing.. The people there will pretty much do anything for you to look at them and buy their stuff. This was really hard for Nick because he just wanted to look, but looking came at a price here. They basically harassed you until you walked away, and even then sometimes they would walk after you. It really drove me crazy, if you even looked lost you would be attacked by taxi drivers, scooter people, street vendor and more. It didn't take long before Nick and I to started mapping out a dodging plan. If we noticed a ton of people ahead we talked about our plan to get around them and 9 times out of 10 we made it.


Right before we left the Forbidden City we were approached by a lady with who introduced herself, holding her badge, as an employee then asked us if we wanted to look at her art collection. AKA she saw that we had already purchased something and wanted us to buy her stuff. (LET me backtrack a few hours) Right after breakfast Nick and I had read a warning for foreigners about a scam that was being ran at the Square and Forbidden City. Someone would walk up to you and be friendly wanting to chat, then they invite you to tea. They would take you to a tea place in the palace area and then leave you to pay the crazy expensive bill. (Back to my story) When this lady approached my red flags went up but Nick said sure, so we followed her and they she unlocked a red door. Behind it was some people just sitting until we came in they all jumped to their feet. We went into a little room as she showed us some of her 'original' art (That looked exactly like the paintings we just bought from the museum shop) When she started talking prices Nick cut her off and said we were not interested and we walked back through the door we came in.

Next we were bombarded by a ton of men and women trying to sell everything and anything to us. We looked down, pretended we did NOT speak English and kept walking.

What an experience.


On the walk back to the Dragon we stopped at a little mom and pop noodle restaurant and just randomly pointed at food, and we weren't disappointed.

 I (Lauren) Had big fat noodles ( I swear it was just one extremely long noodle) Mine tasted the best!!

Nick's choice had more of a vinegar taste to it, still it wasn't bad,  and he ate it tofu and all.

We got to the Dragon and passed out for a couple of hours. 

When we woke up we quickly got ready for our acrobatic show. Sorry we don't have picture for this, but it was really good and hilarious. 

After it was over we took the subway to Wangfujing (night shopping street) and explored it a little before it closed (15 minutes later) We had heard all kinds of things about this crazy street and it lived up to the craziness. They had scorpions, lizards, snakes, cocoons, centipedes, seahorses, starfish, and more on sticks ready to be consumed by someone daring enough to do so. I passed on these.

We walked the long mile back to our place stopping by a Mcdonalds because we were both starving.
We had such a busy first full day in Beijing, China but we were so ready for the adventures upcoming!
Next update The Great Wall!!