CHINA!

 

Day 3: Beijing to Xian (pronounced Ghi-on)

Yesterday was such a great day.  We woke up at 6:30am, ate breakfast, and headed out for touring at 8am.  We started the day off by going to the world famous Tiananmen Square, the largest public square in the world.  It is here that Mao is preserved, preserved well evidentially, although I didn’t venture into that building.  It was freezing cold, and there were a ton of tourists, a ton!  I think we were the only people from the States, and most of the tourists there were Asian and doing typical Asian touristy things . . . it amused us.  We had about a half hour to walk around, which was neat, but it was only a square, you know?  After walking around there we walked across the street to The Forbidden City, a huge mansion complex where the general public was not allowed for many years.  This place was huge.  There are 9,999 rooms!  We had an hour to walk through with a headset tour, making that the most touristy thing I think I have done on Semester at Sea as of now.  It was really cool, and the architecture was neat, but it was huge and repetitive as you filed through building after building.  After that we went to lunch, which was more of the same of what we have been eating . . . another tourist trap of sorts.  After lunch we headed to the Temple of Heaven, a structure that is made with no nails.  When we arrived there a whole bunch of people were dancing/exercising in the public area, evidentially a common thing in China.  People here are always out dancing and exercising in groups, as we have come to find out.  The Temple of Heaven was pretty, but once again, the same thing but different.  We played hacky sack, and then left.  We then headed to the airport for our flight to Xian.  After checking in we had to run to the gate because we were running late.  We walked right on our flight.  You could tell that SAS booked the flight late because us SAS kids had all of the bad seats, and were intermingled with the Chinese throughout the plane.  It was funny, we couldn’t communicate at all!  We hit some turbulence on our two hour flight, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the flight to Beijing.  When we arrived in Xian we headed to dinner.  We went to a famous dumpling house, where we were served about 15 different types of dumplings in addition to all of the pork and chicken and rice dishes that we were given.  It was insane, I ate so much!  After dinner we checked into our amazing hotel, the Tianyu Gloria Hotel.  It is in such a cool area.  Xian is the oldest city in China, 3000 years old, and there is 16m thick city wall that is near out hotel.  After checking in a few guys and I walked to the wall, got some coffee, and then went to a local street that had a lot of relaxed bars.  We went into one, where we were greeted with open arms.  They loved us.  In extremely broken English some men greeted us and bought us all a beer.  We hung there for a few hours and just relaxed.  It was fun.  Around 1:30am we headed back to the hotel for the night.  Xian is an awesome city, and I am excited to spend a few days here.  We are the only SAS group to come here, so that makes our particular trip amazing.  It isn’t as cold here as Beijing, but it is always overcast this time of year.  The city is a mix of old and new, with bright lights and flash at night that are covered in the morning to reveal a beautiful ancient city!  I love it here even more than Beijing!

 

Day 4

I woke up at 7:30am this morning to have breakfast at the hotel’s buffet, before leaving for our touring of the day.  The buffet was great, and my favorite was how they had banana chips to put on the cereal.  Such a great idea, and so good!  First we went to the Lesser Wild Goose Pagoda.  There were tons of people there doing Ti Chi and their morning exercise.  There we walked through a museum that explained the history of Xian.  It was boring, and my new friend Chris and I decided that the most exciting thing there was the massive amount of fire extinguishers that they had next to every door, probably about 10 per every doorway.  The most interesting thing of the trip to the Lesser Goose Pagoda was being able to climb to the top of the Pagoda.  It revealed an awesome view of Xian.  We then drove an hour to the Qinjitang Restaurant where we ate lunch.  There was a silk factory there so a lot of people picked up a few souvenirs, but I didn’t because it was extremely overpriced.  Lunch was very good, and we had unlimited homemade thick noodles that were delicious.  After lunch we proceeded to the highlight of the whole trip, the reason why we all went on our trip, and the part that makes every other SASer jealous . . .  the Terra Cotta Warriors Museum.  Discovered about 30 years ago, this is the greatest archeological discovery in the 21^st century. It was discovered by a few farmers digging a well.  One of these men is still alive and signs autographs in one of the stores there.  The warriors are amazing.  There are so many of them.  In one of the buildings there was a display of one of each type of warrior, ie. the kneeling archer, the standing archer, ect.  In another building there were replicas of the chariots, which no longer exist because they were made of wood and rotted in time.  In the largest building there were rows and rows of these warriors amongst ongoing excavation sites.  It was so cool.  Have you ever seen something older than Jesus? . . . because I have.   We did a tea tasting in a tea room at the Museam.  I normally don’t like tea, but the tea was excellent.  We watched them steep it in front of us, and tried a green, black, white, and flower tea.  We all took our time here, as it was the main attraction of the trip, and when we were all ready we left for our hotel.  After refreshing for a while we headed to dinner and a show of the Tang Dynasty.  It was a mix of dancing and singing, and was quite entertaining at times.  After dinner about 20 of us had a few drinks in the hotel before piling into cabs to take us to Club Salsa.  Club Salsa was so much fun.  We were the only tourists there, and this packed club was full of Chinese people.  They loved us there; they treated us like celebrities, and bought us girls and even the guys drinks all night.  Chinese people do not know how to dance, though.  I met this older man originally from Pakistan but then from the Ukraine (probably about 35 years old) who was currently living in Xian.  He was a good dancer, and his friend was too, so me and my friend Julia proceeded to be the center of attention by dancing on the elevated stage they had, surrounded by a bar.  It was so much fun, and wasn’t alcohol induced; I figured heck, I am in China, I might as well.  After a great night there we walked to McDonalds to get a late night snack, and then got back to the hotel at about 2:00am. 

 

Day 5

Once again I got up early to have breakfast before our schedule meeting time at 9am.  After checking out at our hotel we headed to a Confucius Temple that is the largest stone slab museum.  It was, uh, educational.  We only spent a half hour there before heading to a local school for a Calligraphy lesson.  The lesson was about an hour, and then we had some time to try to write 6 characters.  There are 350,000 characters that master calligraphers know, and 3.500 are used in everyday language.  It is insane.  In China calligraphy is an art form, however.  Great calligraphers have to master 5 different styles of the language, as well.  I loved the lesson, and wished that we could have spent more time there.  We had lunch on the 20^th floor of a restaurant, and it was buffet style which was nice because we could choose what we wanted to eat instead of having a family style meal.  After lunch we went to the Bell Tower, in the center of Xian.  I had already seen it by driving past it on the way to Club Salsa, so we just walked around and had free time for about two hours.  There were many of shops and a mall there, but we just enjoyed our Starbucks and took in the scenery and gorgeous views.  Next we headed to the Yang Tomes of the Han Dynasty, a museum similar to that of the Terra Cotta Warriors except the warriors were much smaller, about 1/12 of the size if that, because after the Terra Cotta Warriors there wasn’t enough money to make such a lavish tomb for the Han Dynasty.  After this museum we had an early boxed dinner on the way to the airport.  We had about an hour at the airport before our plane took off.  Our plane was extremely new and nice, and there were cup holders on the underside of the tray tables!  It was probably the smoothest two hour flight I have ever had; it made up for our flight from Hong Kong to Beijing.  We also got another mean, spicy beef with noodles, pineapple, roll, peanuts, soda, salad . . . it was a good meal!  We arrived in Shanghai and drove about 45 minutes to the ship.  We were all so exited to get home, but we knew that we had been on the best trip ever.  I met so many new, great, people on the trip, I think that it was my favorite trip so far!  The view from the ship is amazing, and you will have to look at my pictures to get a sense of Shanghai.  There are skyscrapers, and the modern looking space-shuttle looking building right outside my window!  I am exhausted, warn out, but totally ready for one more day in China.  I knew that China would be great, but it has exceeded all of my expectations!

 

Day 6

Today was such a relaxing day.  It was much needed.  I woke up at about 8:30am and met up with my friend Chris (who I had met on my Beijing/Xian trip) at about 9:30 am.  We walked around for the whole day, with no plan, just wandering for fun.  We found a bridge to cross the river, about 2 miles away from the ship, and then we needed to take a water taxi to get to the center city where all of the cool buildings are.  After we crossed we walked to a mall and got coffee, and then got Starbucks right after.  Both Chris and I love coffee, and made it our goal on our Beijing trip to find it everywhere we went, so this made us happy.  My favorite thing of the day was finding a Cold Stone!  I seriously freaked out.  They had flavors like green tea, red bean, and tiramisu.  I got tiramisu with lady fingers, chocolate sauce, and chocolate powder on top.  Chris got red bean with white chocolate chips.  I tipped them, and they sang (I videotaped it).  We wandered around all day, shopping a little bit.  We walked around the waterfront for a while too and admired how awesome Shanghai is.  Chris loves peanut butter as much as I did, so we made that our mission.  We succeeded, and were extremely happy when we found some Skippy!  We walked through some back market areas where there were live fish flopping in bins, blood from freshly cut meat, and some mystery pastry that we bought.  It was cheap and delicious.  After that we headed back to the ship and got there at about 5pm.  It was a nice, relaxing day with lots of walking and fresh air.