The past three days have been full.
Full of fun, hard work, shenanigans, hoopla, and near death experiences.

I will try to describe them as best I can, though it's impossible to remember everthing that has happened with the detail I wish to share. (if you care to read from the beginning, just scroll down to 'Mama Naxi day 1: Lijiang'.

Enjoy!


You say Low Road we say Die (Tiger Leaping Gorge: Day 2)


The next morning was raining and we had a delicious breakfast with our friends and set out on the path to Tina's guest house where we would catch a mini bus on the low road back to the base of the gorge.

The walk was pleasent, long, and not hard at all as Stuart and I enjoyed each others company with the peaceful sounds of nothingness and occasional trickeling water around us in the mountains.

We re-met up with the 2 couples that decided to stay in a more expensive place for the night with western toilets and heat (those snobs!!) haha.
We hiked about the next 1 1/2 hours with them down to Tina's and the weather cleared up a bit.

At the bottom we decided to all have a nice lunch before heading back.

I can barely describe to you the journey back on the low road, but I will try my best to do it the horrific justice it deserves.

I now know the reason that Tiger Leaping Gorge was closed: Major landslides on the lowroads, lots of dynamite to blow up parts of the road (to make it better and safer) and lots of big machinary.

Let me tell you about the low road.
On one side you have steep rocky mountain that is very prone to landslides (there were warnings everywhere)
On the other side you have a sheer rocky drop off into the gorge with no guard rail at all.

Additionally, the roads are winding, the driver sometimes having to avoid large rocks by getting painstakingly close to the edge of the road, and not knowing if there is a driver coming from the opposite direction.

We were in a mini bus that was scaring me half to death as we drove in silence. The driver said 'is very dangerous' to us and that made me feel even sicker.

After a few minutes we got out of the mini bus. There had been a landslide and rocks covered the road. We could climb over them fairly safely, but seeing the tower of rocks above, prayed that none would come tumbling down as we hurried to our next vehicle.

The next mini bus driver was crazy fast. We got out again, fearing for our lives as before us we saw that a massive landslide had taken out a good portion of the road and the only way to get across was to climb over massive rocks over the edge of the road, staring down to our rocky death below should we slip.
(Everyone was pretty terrified)
The woman that was taking us to our next mini bus looked more scared than us. 'Is very dangerous' she said to me.
I was the first to go after the lady. The first rock to climb up was a big boulder (I don't know how I climbed onto it, it must have been sheer adrenaline)
The woman yelled 'Hurry!' as if the rocks would tumble down to the gorge at any moment and I climbed as quickly as possible trying not to look over the cliff right beside me. With shaking legs and hands we all somehow managed to get across, relieved, yet fearful for the final leg of our journey.
I honestly don't remember the rest but somehow we got back to where we needed to be to get the heck out of there. We were all happy to have made it.

We calmed down and ended up cramming into a 7 person mini bus to Shangri La (a town about 2 hours from the Gorge that's way up in the mountains). Many people who travel to Shangri La experience altitude sickness as it's way way up in the mountains. Luckily only one of us has experienced it so far.

After a long ride with a few stories but mostly silence and sleep, we arrived.

After showers and relaxing at our new hostel (the Dragon Guesthouse) all 8 of us went out for a long and enjoyable dinner of yak meat, potato bread, and curry soup. We got home quite late and it was FREEZING (because it's in the mountains, Shangri La is VERY cold... Stuart and I were not at all prepared as we had initially planned to go back to Lijiang but spur of the moment decided to stay with our friends and experience a new area of China).

And there you have a jam packed day!

It Smells like Zippers and Penny's (Tiger Leaping Gorge: Yunnan)

Tiger Leaping Gorge is the deepest gorge in the world and is about a three hour journey outside of Lijiang.

Right now, Tiger Leaping Gorge is officially closed (we didn't know why, we just thought maybe it was the 'off season'. Anyway, right now it costs nothing to get in and lots of people have been doing it so we knew that it would be safe.

The ride up to the gorge was bumpy... VERY bumpy. 3 hours of this made my stomach churn, and it was nice to be out of the van when we reached our destination near the base of Tiger Leaping Gorge.

This is the group of people we went with:
2 guys from Toronto and Detroit who are traveling after studying abroad in Hong Kong
1 guy from Singapore
A couple from England (A lawyer and an aspiring school teacher)
and a couple from Switzerland

A woman yelled at us when we got to the bottom of the Gorge (We think she was trying to get us to pay). A chef at Mama's hostel warned us about her and told us not to pay her so we walked on by as she yelled. (It was easy to do that because she wasn't speaking our language).

The journey was HOT HOT HOT and Stu and I forgot to bring sunscreen and didn't pack a lot (Who wants to bring lots of stuff on a 2 day hiking trip? not us!)
It was pretty steep but we took plenty of breaks and drank plenty of water, enjoying the panoramic mountain views.

Let me describe to you what this place looks like. It's totally beautiful. Again, our pictures couldn't do it justice.

The way I can best describe it is that it looks like one of those National Geographic films where a plane goes through mountain ranges and shows views from all around and you think 'Wow! I wonder if I'll see a place like this in my lifetime.'
Well, we were right in the middle of it and loving it.

Mountains went higher than we could see into the clouds way above. Some green, some rocky, some laden with snow.

After an hour or so of pretty good hiking we found a place to have a bite to eat as it was approaching lunch. After some chicken, peanuts, apples and bananas, it was time to press on in the heat of the day.

It was hot and tough. We reached '29 bends' which is a series of rocky switchback that seem to last forever.
We finally reached the top and met a couple who tried to sell us water, snickers, and mary jane. Yes, you heard right.

Snickers sounded almost irresistable, but I wanted to press on, eager to find a place to stay for the night and have a good meal.

We stayed the night along with three other guys at 'The Tea Horse' which I thought was the dumbest name ever...

The showers were freezing and had no drain and no light. The toilet was worse than a normal chinese toilet and was just a trough, literally a trough. (I was scarred for life after using the shower/toilet and almost cried) haha.

We met a really nice Swiss couple who ad tandem biked from KL to Beijing (quite impressive indeed!) and had dinner with them which was quite lovely!

Our room was cozy, but had 2 small beds and a pig squeeling all night outside.


Mama Naxi, Banana Pancakes, Feasts: A Capital Time Had by All! (Day 1: Lijiang)

Our night train to Lijiang was glorious. I fell asleep on the bed, woke up, and poof, we were there.

It was a heck of a time trying to find our way to Mama Naxi's (our hostel) but when we did, we were greeted enthusiastically to say the least by a colourful character known, and loved by all as: Mama!

When we got there she was in a flurry, gathering people up to go to Tiger Leaping Gorge and giving them each a banana as they walked out the door.

A man who did not speak English told us to put our big backpacks outside and motioned for us to come back in and have some tea. So friendly! I immediately loved the place.

We got a menu from someone or other and decided to order a big banana pancake. (Mama's prices are the best around, and we knew we'd be getting a good home cooked meal).
We watched the little gross dogs that roamed around the common room scrapping for a while and chatted with people in the hostel when suddenly appeared the BIGGEST deep fried pancake you could imagine with bananas and honey covering it. It was the best thing we ever tasted and we quickly ordered another.

The rest of the morning was spent reading, showering, relaxing and talking to people in the hostel.
The afternoon was full of exploring, watching the old Naxi women dancing in the square, and climbing to an amazing sight seeing cafe, eating fried peanuts, playing games, and enjoying each others company as the sun shon over the veranda.

The evening was lovely and we spent it having 'family dinner' with the others in the hostel for 15 yuan per person (quite the bang for our buck). The feast, like the company, was warm and satisfying and we ate to our hearts content.

In the evening we went out for about 3 hours just walking around and observing the night life of old town Lijiang. We watched a candy maker, and hilarious dancers in clubs wearing full on traditional Chinese garb including head dresses.

(Old town is VERY touristy)

We ended the night early because we had an early morning ahead that we looked forward to: A trek to Tiger Leaping Gorge.

Yay for a Real Anniversary Treat!

Our wake-up call was due to come at the ripe old hour of 6... but didn't come until after 7. A little bit of a later start to a long day than we had hoped, but such is life.

The guy doing our wake-up call actually opened our door... not sure how he did that, but since nothing was stolen from our room during our stay here we figured it was a-ok.

After a little more last minute packing, we asked the hostel to store our big bags for us while we went off to our adventure:
The first wonder of the world : the stone forest

Stone Forest isn't actually in Kunming, it's in another town called Yunnan which is quite far away. After a little navigating we found our way to the 2nd bus of our journey. We didn't know if we were going the right way on the bus (directions here from anybody are particularly sucky and maps are in chinese...) anyway, we hoped we were heading the right way because this bus ride was over an hour (fingers crossed!)

We were right!

Relieved, we got to the Eastern Bus Station to catch a charter bus to the stone forest.
We literally sat in a hot grody charter for almost an HOUR before the thing moved. It was rediculous. We had heard (from our hostel) that they leave every 15 minutes... but not ours...
The bus was full of people just sitting there waiting and not seeming to care!

Just when Stu was about to say something, the bus driver came on and off we went.
It was boiling and I opened my window. The bus driver came and closed it!
I couldn't believe it!
It was the hottest most miserable hour and a half charter ever!

BUT we soon made it to the forest. There was this Chinese guy with his wife and he was staring at Stuart and then he kept staring and said something to his wife and then she started staring. I yelled right at them "Stop staring at us! thanks!"
They laughed....
hahaha.

The stone forest was totally magical. It's a bunch of these massive limestone rocks that seem to be shooting out of theg ground. They are EVERYWHERE and so awesome. We went up to this look out point where you can see them for miles. You should look it up on the web, it's quite the sight to see.
When we were at the look out we met two Chinese people who spoke English and were very nice. We think that the guy was videoing us talking to his girlfriend, and then they took some pictures with us. It was cute.

After a while we decided to go way off the beaten path (we didn't see anyone else for at least an hour!) and squeeze through narrow pathways between towers of rocks until we reached... the eternal mushroom. Sounds rediculous, right? It was BEAUTIFUL! And so desolate! and so romantical! We took a bunch of pictures and then realized we had to go all the way back to the enterance and travel about 3 hours to get back to the hostel and then catch an 11:00(pm) train out of Kunming! We had to motor!

We rushed as fast as we could through the narrow path (which was quite slow still because we didn't want to slip) back to the busses.
The next bus wasn't due to leave for another fourty five minutes! Oh no!!

We decided to make the most of it and went to a little shop and bought some things to snack on while we waited.

The busses weren't so bad. We got back to our place at about 8:30. Just enough time to shower, have dinner, figure out how to get to our hostel from the Lijiang train station, and say goodbye.

...

Unfortunately the hostel had told us the wrong time that our train was leaving (it was a darn good thing we checked our ticket!!!) At quarter to 9 we realized that we had to catch the train at 10!!!! Double oh no!

We quickly grabbed some McDonalds (the closest thing to the bus stop) and caught the bus to the station... and we made it!

HORRAY!

It was a lot of public transit for one day, but we think it was totally worth it! :)

Worst. Anniversary. Ever.

We've decided to pretend this day didn't happen.
We've also decided that tomorrow will be our anniversary because it will be our REAL anniversary in B.C. even though it'll be the 25th here.

We were still sicky in the morning and took a walk to the park and shop and tried to buy some things for breakfast. (blah blah blah the morning's boring, nothing eventful just a lot of moaning and groaning)

In the afternoon I talked to my parents on skype for a bit, so that was nice.

After that we tried to find the freaking Vietnam Embassy to get our visas...
A girl that works here told us the WRONG way to go on the WRONG bus and we ended up... you guessed it, in the WRONG place.(we later found out that she had guided us to the Thailand embassy... wow)

The Embassy was due to close at 4:30 and it was getting dangerously close.

(We would have been fine had we had decent directions)

We ended up taking a taxi after a long bus ride and a lot of confused bank tellers chattering to each other about which way it was (we were probably there for a good 15 minutes).

The taxi's clock said 4:18 when we got in and we were stuck in traffic for a long time. 4:30 came and 4:30 went... and still we weren't at the Embassy.

All I could think was "there's no way in the world I'm doing this again tomorrow"...

We rolled into the embassy and much to our surprise it was... OPEN!
The clock said 4:20! The taxi was wrong!
Just in the nick of time we handed in our passports and sighed a big sigh of relief.

Now to figure out how to get home. (it wasn't so bad, we just walked for a while and caught a bus... thankfully we had the hostel pamphlet with us).

When we got back we were ill but we thought we should go out for our anniversary. We thought we'd be safe to order our old standby's : Kung Pow Chicken, egg fried rice, and Sweet and Sour Pork.

The sweet and sour pork was raunchy and the Kung Pow was dangerously hot.

We didn't even close to finish because we were feeling worse than ever.
We could barely walk home. I threw up in my mouth at the market. Eww.

Now we're here again.. at the hostel.. getting ready to pack everything up. We're moving again.

We're planning on spending some serious time in Lijiang just to chill out for a while. Maybe not run around so much and spend a day reading a good book. (what a luxury that would be!)

That's all for now.

P.S. our comments thing isn't working. If anyone reading this wants to email us you can reach us by this e-mail: wearytravelers@hotmail.com

Our Hostel, the Cookies, and Recoveries

The Hostel:

Our bed is rock hard.
Our door sometimes won't lock. Sometimes won't let us in.
The bathroom is at the very end of the hall and is grody and tiny and has almost no light.
We pay for toilet paper.

BUT... the AC works, so that almost cancels out all the bad stuff.

The Cookies:

We were looking at cookies at the Park and Shop (right before we got sick) and this crazy lady (who works there) came up to us while we were in the bulk cookie section and started giving us LOADS of cookies to try. Like, hanfulls of big cookies. It was the most rediculous thing! We walked away with handfulls of cookies an ended up buying 20 cents worth (aka a million cookies).

Recoveries:

After a 3 hour nap and a 10 hour sleep we are feeling a bit better but not totally. Still a it of a sloshy weirdness in our stomachs.

We have taken it easy so far today and think we will probably continue to.

Accurate Assumptions

You can make two assumptions when you see that we haven't updated the blog in a couple of days.

Assumption 1: We are busy having too much fun to think of it
Assumption 2: We are sickly

Both of these, fortunately and unfortunately, are accurate assumptions.

Here's the lowdown on the past 3 days in order (read 'Terracotta' first if you want to go in order)

Short Sleeps and (dare I say) food poisoning? (Day 1: Kunming)

Oh boy, what a morning. We thought we would be late for our flight. Reception only had 1 person and we were waiting patiently (well... Stuart was...) to check-out and get our deposit back. Also, Stu ordered toast (to ensure we would get it quickly)... and that took over 20 minutes. We didn't end up heading out the door until 7:35 (yikes!) and we had heard that the airport busses only come ever 20 minutes, and we still had a 10-15 minute walk to get to where the airport busses come.

We walked in the wrong direction (it was early, okay!) for about 5 minutes (thank goodness we realized it!) and ended up catching an airport bus the minute we got there. Awesome!

We didn't have to wait in the huge line at the airport for some reason which was weird... maybe it was because we didn't have our tickets and had to pick them up.. but for whatever reason they took our luggage through right away which rocked.

When we got to the terminal there was a guy that we had talked to from our hostel (going on the same flight/same place as us... even same hostel!) so we chatted with him while we waited.

The flight was short and sweet and comfortable and even had a meal!

When we got our luggage we re-met up with the guy and his Chinese friend and all headed together to the hostel (by bus).

I had written down directions to get there that said 3 stops on one bus, 5 stops on another...

Three stops later I said 'okay, this is our stop' and the chinese guy said it wasnt. I said that I had written down that it was and he said no, it was one more stop.

We went one more stop....

I was right. So annoying!

(by the way, it is SO hot here today) and we waited for the stupid 52 bus to take us 3 more stops in that direction before transfering.

The white guy from our hostel was like 'Let's just get a taxi!' It was a pretty good idea and the Chinese guy paid for it. (sa-weet!)

This hostel sucks. But I guess that was bound to happen eventually. I wont get into it now because I've been typing this 3 days worth of blog for the last 1/2 hour and don't feel like it. Maybe tomorrow.

We went to find something to eat and ate at this little hole in the wall. It was probably the worst thing we've ever had. Cold noodles with water ('broth') but it was just cold water with green onions, cilantro, and the SPICY-EST RED SAUCE YOU'VE EVER HAD!

We ate it... but it was uber bad.

We went to a grocery store after that and walked around and sat in their massage chairs for a while. (Stu and I are all about massage chairs... you may have noticed).

We got some snacks and a bunch of water.

(**Note to self: write about the lady with the cookies in the next blog**)

On our way home I started to feel seriously ill.

I was in the room (stuart left for a bit) and I was lying on the bed feeling like I was going to explode, when suddenly, I did...

Ran to the common bathroom and... projectile vomit... everywhere.
The bathrooms have no toilet paper.
Ewww.

I didn't have the key, cuz stu had it, so I sat outside of our room and felt like I couldn't get up... eventually stu helped me up and I lied as still as I could in bed for a while before falling asleep.

When I woke up I felt mostly better but really hungry.

We went out to look for food and everything was GRODY to the max (pigs feet, pigs stomach... etc.) and everywhere we went smelled like wet dog. No thanks.

Stuart started feeling serioulsy sick, too and we came back to the hostel and forced ourselves to eat something. It wasn't so bad and I feel a bit better after eating.
I think stu still feels gross and I still feel semi-gross.

Anyway, those are our days! Hopefully we feel better tomorrow, it's our anniversary for crying out loud!

Chillin and Illin like a Villain: (Day 3)

We had a really late start to the day, but it was nice and relaxing.

After breakfast we went out to look for Wal Mart (yes, you heard right, Wal Mart, we couldn't believe it either!)

It was the most beautiful day EVER since we got here. Hot. But not too humid, and it's way less pollutie in Xi'an so that's a bonus.

The most glorious thing happened on our way, we discovered a whole new part of Xi'an we hadn't even seen before, and boy was it boppin'!

So many people, so many stores/markets/places to eat!

And then... the cutest clothes store ever and with the cheapest stuff!!!

One problem... you couldn't try anything on... not even over your clothes!

I ended up buying three things (that you would prooobably not see in Canada) and figured that if one of them sucked, so be it.

(later when I tried them on at home, I loved 2 and hated one) so, big deal! It was totally fun and a very new experience. (the store was INSANE, so many girls, so many clothes, so little time!)

The reason we had to go to Wal Mart because, as luck would have it, no where in China sells freakin deodarent and Stu had been out for about a week. (We assumed we could just pick some up out here... boy were we wrong!)

The closest thing we could even find in Wal Mart to deodarent was this roll on stuff that looks/smells like cologne (and we're pretty sure it's just armpit cologne...)

After that we went to a new frozen yogurt store, talked to the owner for a bit, and had some (so good on a hot day!)

On our way home we (finally!) had some steamed pork buns (wow, are they ever good and so so cheap!)

After we got home and out of the heat we changed our clothes and headed out again! It was around 6 and we wanted to go see and bike the city wall!

Another interesting thing to mention about Xi'an is that part of it is enclosed in a 14k perimiter city wall that is 12 meters high (and QUITE impressive.. and anicent!)

It was totally cool and a nice time of day to go, as it was breezy and not too hot anymore. We were biking along and then suddenly the wall had these really odd, brightly coloured, huge things! Animals, trees, etc. It was bizarre. It looked like we were in disneyland for a good 10 minutes of our bikeride... I still wonder why those are there...

Anyway, we looked around again for a good place to eat before stumbling upon... PIZZA HUT!

Pizza Hut's here are totally delux and have about a 12 page menu (only 2 of it being pizza).
Our waitress was so sweet and nice and we ended up getting calamari (oh my gosh, seriously the best calamari we've ever had... maybe because it's freshie or something?) and a pizza that we couldn't finish (I think because we drank SO much water that we were too full!)

We stayed there for a LONG time and then came home around 11.

We booked our flights and our hostel for Kunming, packed up, and went to bed at 12:30-1:00ish... that doesn't seem so late... but our flight was at 10:30 and the airport was far away so we had to get up at 6:30.

Terracotta!

Woke up around 9 which was a good thing, as we planned to go with the couple we met on day 1 to Terracotta Warriors at 10.
I got downstairs at around 9:15 and had coffe with some girls and chatted about travels.

Once the 6 of us (4 girls, Stu, and Dan) were all ready, we headed out.
The Terracotta army was totally crazy and deemed the '8th wonder of the world'.
For those of you who don't know what they are, over 2000 years ago, an entire army of terracotta soldiers was built.
Apparently each of the soliders has a different design (there are literally thousands of them). They're not small either. They are life sized, and had weapons, charriots, the works.

They were discovered in the 70's by some guy trying to dig a well, and thank goodness they were! Archaeologists are still uncovering, and it is estimated to take another 200 years before all of them are unearthed.

After that we saw the 2 biggest marionettes in the world that were used in the Beijing Olympics (and created for them, too.) called 'The Warrior and the Girl' (or soldier and girl...)
anyway, they were totally rediculously awesome.

When we got home we were super hungry after not having lunch. It was about dinner time when we got back.

We walked around for-ev-er trying to find a restaurant that was good like the one on the first night, but it was evident that we had just lucked out.

We went back to the same restaurant as the previous night and tried (unsuccessfully) to order 'something different'. I just ate my egg fried rice and heaping cucumber salad (mm mm good!) as Stu picked away at the gruel we were served (what a martyr!).

That night was probably the most hilarious night ever once we got back to the hostel.

It started with a dumpling party. Totally fun! We learned how to shape perfect little dumplings! I thought we were going to make the innards and the dough, too, but I guess given the amount of people doing it and the limited amount of space, that may have been difficult.

Regardless it was a lot of fun and we met a lot of new people!

All in all hundreds of pork and egg/green onion dumplings were made.
They were DELICIOUS!

We met the worlds craziest Japanese guy (like, you have never met a guy this crazy in your life... SO EXCITED about EVERYTHING!)

We hung out with 2 guys from England and the crazy Japanese guy all night, which was great fun. I can't really describe the conversations had... but believe me, we were almost crying from laughing so much at the Japanese guy.

After that, Stu and I went on the net to try to do some serious planning.
We found killer flights out of Xi'an to Kunming that were about the same (maybe a little more) than the THIRTY SIX hour train ride we would've had to endure.
SO THANKFUL FOR THAT!

When we got upstairs we were still kind of wired and ended up watching a national geographic show about the Taliban. (and then I had a nightmare!)
We got to bed around 2ish.

Xi'an

We got to our hostel and were super hungry after our train ride.

We had a hearty breakfast at the hostel and got to know a really nice couple around our age (Selena and Dan) and had a long talk with them. They've been traveling through south east asia and now china for the past 4 months, pretty much exactly what we're going to do, only in reverse.
They shared some hilarious stories and some sad stories from their trip.
Next thing we knew morning had turned to afternoon and it was time for us to go exlore.
We went to three places. The bell tower, the drum tower and the muslim quarter.
I know I said Shanghai and Beijing were different, but Xi'an is very different from both of those as well.
I think that Xi'an is a happy middle. I like it here.
It's got a little bit of a market feel, a little bit of big city feel, and lots of historical bits to explore, too.
The bell tower was the biggest waste of money ever.
The drum tower was pretty cool and we watched a rad drum performance. The two tickets came together, so I guess it wasn't that big of a bust.
We wandered around the muslim quarter which was like its own little world. SO many market shops selling dried... everything!
A big thing there was walnuts. They were roasting them in big bins in front of many of the shops in barrels full of really hot sand. It was pretty interesting to watch the process.
We bought what we thought were walnuts (because there were walnuts on the rapper) but it ended up being walnut brittle stuff that tasted (to me) like pepper.
Stuart LOVED it.
Me... not so much.
The traffic in those narrow cobblestone streets was completely rediculous and we witnessed a pretty intense yelling match between a guard and someone riding a motorcycle thing.

Speaking of which:
Something to mention about China that I have not mentioned yet is that there are people dressed up as guards/police EVERYWHERE! They wear these official looking green outfits with official looking green hats. It's really bizarre because sometimes they'll just be standing around joking with local vendors, and sometimes they look like they're like 16 years old... so I don't know what the deal with them is or what their role is, but we see them around all the time. (Most prevelant in Beijing, less so in Xi'an)

We bought some dried kiwis that ended up being not half bad (...but not half good, either)
One thing that was a bit sketch was that there is meat sitting out ALL the time with the sun beating down on it and people buy it! Yuck...

That evening Stu and I stumbled upon a restaurant close to our place that was totally great.
I had the biggest most amazing cucumber salad I've EVER had with these spicy red pepprs, thinly cut garlic and a peanutty sauce. MMM mmm.

When we got back to our place we spent a lot of time visiting with people in the hostel and planning what was going to be up for the next day.

We decided to go to the Terracotta Warriors with a group of 4 friends we'd made.

Later on, after a jolly good night, beat from a long night and a fun day, we went to sleep!

The Train and the Weasel

The Train

We arrived in Xi'an at 9:00 am. 11 and a half hours of sheer bliss on the worlds worst train.
At least we know for next time...

Stu and I had this jar of peaches on the train that we hadn't opened yet. We passed it back and forth forever trying to open it and the guys across from us were watching us and laughing at us struggling.
Finally people from the other rows were watching and we gave it to a man across the aisle who tried, failed, hit it from the bottom, failed again and passed it to the guy beside him who also tried and failed multiple times. By this time probably 7 people were watching and waiting, wondering if we would ever open the impossible jar. After passing it back to the first guy and him admitting defeat, the other guy put kleenex over the top, twisted, and low and behold, opened the jar!
A woman in our aisle clapped!
The highlight of the trip. (It was pretty dull until that point, clearly)

Getting off the train, our next task was to find the person who was going to be picking us up and taking us to our hostel.
We wandered around for a while wondering where the main exit was until finally realizing that
"Subway Out" meant "way out"... there wasn't even a freaking subway! Lost in translation?

You can't even begin to imagine the amount of people leaving that train station or the obscene amount of stuff some people can carry with them. Massive burlap sacks, HUGE cardboard boxes, luggage, etc as people crammed their way toward the door. The hallway was super wide and yet we were moving at a snails pace, getting pushed and passed, the door looking like a mirage:right in front of us and yet SO far away.

Once we finally got through those beautiful glass doors, it was out into the open area of chaos trying to find our driver (among LOTS of other people holding up signs)

We have never been so bombarded with people asking us if we need a taxi or a hotel.
This guy approached us and asked us if we were staying in 'youth hostel'. I said 'which youth hostel?' (to test him.) and he said 'youth hostel. I am picking up people and taking them to youth hostel'. I knew that clearly it was some sort of trick because the person was going to be holding up a sign with our names on it.

We looked around and around and no one was holding a sign for us. We were tired. We didn't want to find our own way to the hostel, so we tried to find a phone because thankfully, though all the plans were made, we had the phone number for the hostel. (thank you stuart!)

We also knew that we were about 1/2 hour later than we thought we would be (we thought the train was going to arrive around 8:30 and it ended up being closer to 9:00) and that there was a chance that they had come and gone.

The Weasel

A skinny and quite weasely looking guy came up to us and said 'Hello'. Irritated after all of the people trying to get our attention before escaping the madness of the train station entrance, I replied 'Goodbye!' He laughed and began to follow us. 'Are you looking for a hotel?' he asked. 'No,' Stuart said. 'We have a hostel.'
'Bye' I said.
He just laughed again.
We were at a convenience store trying to communicate that we would like to use the phone they had with little success (not many people are english speakers around here...) and the guy that was talking to us before said we could use his cell phone.
We were kind of desperate so we just used it. It didn't work.
We tried calling the hostel and after a couple of funny sounds, assumed that it was busy. I saw the weasel guy on his cell phone right before we called, so I think that he dialed the number right before us so we couldn't get through.
This was getting really irritating and freaking me out a little. Why wouldn't he just leave? And why the frick did we use his stupid cell phone?
We called again, this time making sure that the weasel wasn't using his cell phone and got through.
They then told us that they had been waiting for us for half an hour and that the girl had just left. Shoot!
The told us they would meet us at the bus stop and go back with us to the hostel. We thanked them, sounded great. It was only three stops and we knew which bus to get on.
The weasel told us over and over and over that he would take us. We told him that it was okay, we had it from here, and basically to get lost.
We got to the 603 bus a few minutes later. It had started moving and we just jumped on. (We just wanted to unload our stuff and get on with our stupid day!)
And who got on behind is?
Dr. Weasel himself.
I was getting a little scared. Why wouldn't this idiot leave us alone?
He was pretending to look at his map and got really close to us and started talking again.
'I just learning englih. I want to practise my english' he said.
First off, his english was pretty much perfect. Secondly, that is one of the things you first learn when you get to China, if someone is telling you that they just 'want to practise their english' stay away from them. It's part of some way to sucker you in to being like 'oh, yes! talk to us' and then getting scammed.
When he said that I said 'Then go to school.'

He kept insisting he would take us to the hostel.
We told him to leave us alone and that we were done talking to him.
We were very clear, yet he wouldn't stop.
Of course, when he got off the bus at our stop, I was getting REALLY aggitated.
We couldn't see the person that was supposed to pick us up and I was just praying for her to come, and quickly!

The guy said again 'I just want to practise my english. Come with me. I'll take you to your hostel. Is very nearest to here.'
He was getting more forceful.
'Look,' I said, 'Leave right now. Just walk away. We don't like you. We don't want to talk to you.'
He just laughed, said sorry, and stayed where he was, insisting he would take us.
'We have someone that's coming to pick us up.' Stu said.
'No, I'll take you.'
'No. We DO NOT like you. Turn around. Go away.'
'I'm just trying to practise my english.'
'We do not care about you. We don't care about your english. GET LOST!'
He walked away for a moment, taked on his cell phone and came back.
'I just talked to your hostel.' he said. 'They told me to take you.'

Now I was almost getting scared. What if he did phone our hostel and tell them that we didn't need to be picked up. He had the number.

I pretty much yelled at him now that I didn't like him and that he needed to shove off.

He was furious. 'I thought foreigners were nice, you are not. You are making bad impression, very bad impression.'
Stuart said, 'You are giving us a bad impression of locals!'

The weasel (almost yelling now) said 'I AM YOUR FRIEND! I WANT TO HELP YOU! I'LL TAKE YOU TO YOUR HOSTEL! I WANT TO HELP YOU!'

uh....

'IS VERY NEAREST.' (He pointed to the right)

Stuart and I left (as the girl had for some reason not arrived yet) and went into a cell phone store and used a phone.
The guy in the cell phone store was really nice and when he was trying to dial he couldn't figure out why it wasn't working (the reciever cord wasn't connected to the base) it was pretty funny and made me a little less stressed and jittery about the weasel situation.

The girl was on her way!

Pretty much right after we left the cell store we found her, the weasel was gone, and we walked safely to our hostel.

WOW! What an experience. Yikee!

(ps he pointed that our hostel was down the road to the right... it was in the opposite direction)

It's a long road to Xi'an/Not every day can be a rosie day

Hello. I'm tired.

Let me tell you something that Stuart and I saw one day:
1. A man washing his hair in a bowl in the middle of a store
2. A woman dumping globs of fat down a drain in the street
3. A man with at least 10 propane tanks in the back of his vehicle throwing them carelessly out onto the street.

(That was Beijing)

On to other things...

Yesterday was.. HOT. VERY hot. Maybe too hot.

Here's the thing. Usually, I think that nothing is too hot.
I love hot.
I live for hot.
I drop it like it's hot.

But hot in Beijing is not just hot. It's hot, humid, stinky, and thick with pollution.
Beijing hot is nauseatingly hot.

In the morning Stu and I ate some breakie at the 365 and met a guy from Mexico.
After that we got packed up (because we had to check out of our hostel by 12 noon) and headed for the zoo.

The zoo was... sad almost.
Lions and tigers were in concrete cages smaller than my bedroom just pacing back and forth.
I think all the animals just looked sad.
I'm not even a freaky animal rights person and it depressed me.

The grounds were beautiful though. Some of the animals were in nice wide open spaces (like the zebras). They were totally cool. I love zebras!

Besides getting a killer tan, we were also getting killer tired from the smoldering heat. We were at the zoo for about three and a half hours (it's a big zoo!)

Stuart caught a few people taking pictures of us (because we're white, duh!) which I think is hilarious.

I don't know if I mentioned this in the blog, but when we were on the Bund in Shanghai, these guys were taking a picture of us and then they saw that we saw them and we all got our picture taken together, then about 10 more people jumped in the picture.

On another side note: Chinese people fricken love to blast english Christmas songs. Lots of Mariah Carey Christmas, and lots of Auld Lang Syne!

Back to yesterday:

After that we jumped on the Metro to go to this electronics market that Stu had heard about that was "close" to our house. It ended up being super far away. We wandered around for about 20 minutes, exhausted, until it closed.

Then he wanted to go to this Peking Duck place that was recommended to us by this girl that we met from Prince George. The place was semi-far away and VERY expensive. We were so tired and so hungry... but I just couldn't do it. It was like 198 yuan just for the duck. In my opinion, so not worth it.

We jumped BACK on the metro to try and find some other place, but after walking around aimlessly, realized it was a lost cause (plus we didn't have much time to get to the train station for our night train, as it was already approaching 6:30pm).

Getting back to the metro, tired, frusterated, starving, boiling, stressed, I started crying. (I'm such a girl, right?!)

Finally we got back near our house and found some restaurant where we ate lots and lots for about 80 yuan. (2 egg fried rice, 2 rice, kung pow chicken, and ... PEKING DUCK!)
The duck was just a duck.
Duck is just duck. Chicken is just chicken. Rice is just rice.
I don't know what that's supposed to mean, but it's how I feel right now because I'm delirious.

We caught our night train which was the WORST! We were in 'hard seats' which meant that we were sitting in the worlds crappiest chairs that didn't recline and had no leg room, across from three people who also had no leg room.

Lights were on the whole time, people were talking, music was playing, babies were screaming, and people were standing and sitting in the aisles because they were on stand-by to get a seat. It was virtually impossible to get a proper sleep.

After a long 11 hours, we were in Xi'an!

---- more to come ----

Silky Fun!

It was a beautiful day in Beijing for the first time since we got here.
The weather has been dismal until this point. Grey with a bit of rain (but kind of warm). But yesterday the sun shon with a vengance!
... unfortunately today was the day for us to stay in and plan what our next move was going to be...

We went to a restuarant for breakfast (the 365). It's also a hostel, but it's a totally cool restaurant where a lot of travelers eat breakfast (as the Chinese have a little different breakfast than we are accustomed to, or ever hope to be accustomed to). We had some good ol' fashioned eggs, toast, and coffee and talked about how long we want to be in Beijing. And oh my gosh, this Chinese guy said to me: "You have nice smile. Like girls in the magazines." It was the cutest compliment ever.
ahem... anyway...

We decided on booking another night in Beijing to see an Acrobatics show and go to the Silk Market.
We got a train booked for the following night to Xi'an. An over night 11 hour train ride in a hard seat... that will most likely be a loooong night.

By 12:00 all our plans were in order and we were out the door, walking around looking for some steamed pork buns for lunch. We went to a place and thought we ordered them when suddenly they came out with two huge containers of pork dumplings and told us it was one portion.

uh... ni...hao...?

We payed for it and ate one container full (they were delicious, but not what we wanted!) and gave the other container to a couple in a hostel near ours.

Next destination? The silk market.

A guy from the 365 said that there was no way were going to get good prices there because the vendors totally rip foreigners off...
and we knew we may as well have 'rip us off' tattooed on our foreheads. Two sparkley eyed white people with backpacks on in the midst of Beijing chaos.

I was determined to get some smokin' deals, though. I had my bargain face on. (Thanks for teaching me that skill, mom). Let me tell you, bartering is EXHAUSTING and not as easy as I thought.

First off, let me tell you about what is sold at the Silk Market. It is gigantic. It's 6 stories high and each floor has a theme.
Floor 1: clothes
Floor 2: purses purses and, well, more purses
Floor 3: Toys and baby stuff
Floor 4: Silk
Floor 5: Jewlery and tuns of it
Floor 6: Arts and crafts

somewhere in there is lots of electronics and watches, too.

(I'm not 100% sure I have the order exactly right, but you get the picture)

What kind of clothes, purses, toys, jewlery, etc?

Everything is knock off. But Beijing is the KING of knock off's that look totally authentic. Who cares if it's not? It looks like Gucci, smells like Chanel, keeps you dry like Gortex (okay, that one might not be true), but you know what I'm sayin. You can't tell the difference that this stuff is fake. (unless you're buying electronics.... pretty sure the difference would become evident after a week or so...)

We walked for a few minutes, and then... I saw it. My beloved Abercrombie and Fitch! It was so real, so beautiful...
so....
expensive!!!

Stuart had heard that you should try to barter them down at the Silk Market for about 30% of the inital price presented.
I saw an adorable pink abercrombie shirt.
"how much?"
265- she punched into a calculator.
"too expensive!" I said.
"For you, shhh, only for you, special deal. 200."
(this is yuan by the way, so that would be about 30 bucks)
I laughed in her face.
"No way!" I said, feeling powerful, "20!"
"You insult me!" She said.
"It's just a t-shirt!" I said.
After lots and lots of back and forth (it was kind of thrilling!) I ended up walking away with the beautiful pink abercrombie for
...
40 yuan! (5.85 CDN)

VICTORY!

... But I was exhausted.

After hours of walking and walking and walking and being grabbed at at yelled at, I turned to a girl who grabbed me and said:
"Don't touch me!!!"
expecting her to say sorry, or nothing at all, her response caught me off guard (and was hilarious!)
"But I like to touch you!"
hahahaha

I finally yelled out "WE HAVE NO MONEY!!!"
(which was true, we had to go to an ATM)

You have to understand, this market was absolutely insane. You have never been talked to and touched by so many freaking people in your whole life.

After Stu and I stood forever at the fake electronics place looking at iTouches (we thought it might be sweet to have even a crappy one for those long train rides we were bound to continue enduring for the next 3 and a half months)... I got my second wind.
(ps, we didn't end up buying one. Stuart is not much of a barterer. All he says is "I honestly wouldn't pay more than 200 for that" hahaha)

We went to this fake Nike store that had some cute short sleeved zip-ups. The guy that was in there was SO MEAN. He didn't even talk to me. I tried to get him to sell me 2 for 120 and he got SO MAD! He pretty much made us leave.

I went to another Nike place and after LOTS AND LOTS of bartering, got the girl to agree to give me the exact same stuff for 2 for 125. I was so happy! ...
but then, after all that, she didn't have my sizes and we left empty handed!

But then, just around the bend, what's that I see??
ANOTHER ABERCROMBIE STORE!!

The girl in there was totally adorable, but trying so hard to rip me off.
"I give to you for 200, is very cheaper!"
"Ya, right! I got another one, exactly the same from a lady over there for 40! Give me a better deal!"
"40? IMPOSSIBLE!"
"No! Not impossible! True! 40!"
"I'll sell to you for 80, final offer. No cheaper. Any cheaper, I can't afford."
"Forget it! I'm not paying 80!"
"You are very beautiful. This shirt look very beautiful, the colour for you." (Hugs me)
(Stuart and I laugh)
"Thank you, you're very nice, but there's no way I'm paying 80!"
"Name your price."
(so I said a way low price, obviously one that was too low so we could do some negotiating)
"20."
She laughs. "You crazy! You crazy!!!"
"Okay, what if I buy four, you give me a deal."
"No no no, okay, 60 each."
"No way. Stu, let's go." (She blocks me in)
"You just pick the ones you want, then we'll talk. Just pick, just pick. No talk about price."
So I picked out 4 beautiful shirts and she started to pack them up.
"I'll give you 30 for each of them."
"No way, not possible. No, not possible! Ok ok, 40 each, 4 shirts, final."
"No, 35. I will only pay 35 each."
"I can not."
(Stuart and I get out 140 yuan and hand it to her)
She counts it.
Reluctently she hands me the bag.
We shake hands and I laugh and her friend says "You tough lady. You mean lady!" (but she's smiling)
4 more abercrombies for 20 bucks!

My last purchase was 2 books of hello kitty stickers for my piano students. (Sooo cute!)

We decided that it was time to leave. Our heads were spinning and we were down right exhausted!

We walked down a street and saw a guy making crepes with egg, green onion, some unidentified brown paste, and a crispy thing in the middle. We thought it looked pretty awesome and was going for 3 yuan so we decided to get one. Stu loved it. Me, maybe not so much.

I went in a squat toilet stall and peed ALL OVER the floor... and a bit on my pants, pretty much none of it in the actual toilet. It was the most embarrassing and disgusting moment of my life I'm pretty sure.

There was a Subway (not like an underground, like a restaurant) right by the Silk Market (because a lot of tourists go there) so we grabbed some foot longs for dinner and headed to the Chanyang theatre for the acrobatics show.

In front of the entrance there was a lady in pj's
*sidenote: lots of Chinese people like to walk around in their pj's all the time. I got a picture of a lady in high heels and pj's.
Ultra classy!*
Anyway, this lady in her pj's had her little son with her (in his slitted pants that I mentioned in yesterdays blog) and lots of people were taking pictures of him. It was hilarious! Of course, I got a money shot.

The acrobatics were totally cool. Definitely worth the 34 bucks we payed to go see it. Where else can you see 10 people on a bicycle? It was totally awesome, and by going on our own instead of through the hostel we saved 20 bucks!

All in all, it was 100% a great day!

Today we're heading for the zoo and we'll see the pandas! Later on, onto Dongsi Road for some famous Peking Duck!

P.S. So far 2 Chinese people have told me that I look half Chinese. hahaha.

Thoughts on China

Beijing, the city of the famous hock-a-loogie:

Men here hork like you've never heard before. The weird thing is that they usually don't acutally spit out out... eww.
It is totally gross.
I thought that everyone that lived here was just immune to it (because it happens all the time) but last night a man did it and a Chinese woman went 'Uck!' and shook her head. It made me happy.

Chidren have slits in their pants and they don't wear any underwear. I'll try to get a picture. The first time I saw it I thought the pants were ripped... the second time I saw it I wondered what was going on, and the third time I realized that this was no accident! They wear them for the squat toilets! Easy access.

Yesterday was my first day being forced to use a squat toilet (when we were in the mountain village).
Let me tell you, if it didn't smell foul, there was no urine on the ground, and you didn't have to put your dirty tp into a garbage can, it wouldn't be all that bad.... but it does, and it was.

Things you'll likely see being sold in the streets:
-Skewers of all sorts of meats
-deep fried bread
-sponge toffee (so good!)
-steamed buns full of... who knows what (but boy do they smell good!)
-T-shirts and bags of Che Guevera
-T-shirts of Obama wearing Chinese stuff
-Paintings (that I thought were niceish, but apparently are a dime a dozen)

There are stores that sell T-shirts for 15 RMB (like 2.50 CDN)... but Stuart and I didn't have time to go in them.

I read somewhere that Beijing was the bicycle capital of Asia but I think that's totally off. Shanghai was bicycle CRAZY! Way more bikes and way less cars there than here.

Here's something interesting:
The sidewalks are all fenced off from the road and almost all of the crosswalks are underground in Beijing.
In Shanghai, walk signs mean nothing. People (and cars) pretty much go whenever they want to. I almost got hit by a motorcycle a few days ago.

The Subway stations are really nice in both Shanghai and Beijing and the cost of where you are going depends on how many stops you'll be taking. A trip that takes three stops will set you back 2RMB (about 30 cents CDN)

It's pretty cheap to get around here... even if you take a taxi. Taxi rides usually cost about 25 RMB, but Stu and I are too cheap to take them. We have yet to go in a taxi though in some instances it would be soo much more convenient.

Tonight (or tomorrow... we have to decide still) we will be heading on a night train in a hard seat (all they have left) to Xi'an which we have heard is totally awesome.


Fin.

You Don't Sign Waivers in China

Week one of China: Complete!
and boy did we end it off with a bang!

Arose bright and early at the ripe old hour of 6:30. I woke up at 4:30 because some people were screaming outside and then I didn't think I even fell back asleep, but suddenly I was waking up to our wake-up phone call from downstairs! Bizzaro-world!

We rushed around to get ready to leave our hostel by 7:00 so we could get a good breakfast at the hostel we were leaving from. We got there a bit after 7 and our bus was leaving at 7:30. Stu ordered his food and everyone elses food was coming out except for his. 7:30 came... and went... and still Stuart's food hadn't come! (I just ordered toast because I knew it was busy and the odds of me getting my food quickly were good).
They started rallying people up for the bus and I said to the girl "Either give us our food or give us our money back!" ... and so she gave Stuart cold sausage, bacon and untoasted toast (aka bread). hahaha.

The ride to the Great Wall was LONG! We were in a very cold/very hot/very cold old bus for about 3 hours before reaching our destination.

Wait wait wait, let me back up. I want to tell you about the Great Wall tour that we chose.

It's through this hostel nearby that has a tour called the 'Secret Wall'. It's up way way in the mountains on a single file dirt path and then you get to an unrestored part of the wall that you climb for, well, a long time before going back down on the other side to a small mountain village and having an authentic village meal prepared for you.

Sounds cool, right? Almost too cool to be true?

It wasn't! It was exactly what it said! It was totally awesome!

We met some really nice people. Well, some weird ones, too. Naturally.
There was a couple we were talking to on the bus and they kept saying things like 'This reminds me of Nepal. Oh, Tibet. This path has been destroyed by tourists... blah blah blah' barf me.

There was a guy that kept fixing his weird hairdo, and a girl with very very hairy legs. But she was the coolest one of us all.

The way I see it, if you're a cool traveler girl and you're okay with not having shaved your legs in months and wear shorts proudly, you've got to be pretty awesome. And she was, naturally.

The climb was HOT and the wall was unstable in some parts, but that made it better! It was totally unbelievable how beautiful it was up there. Mountains EVERYWHERE. Our pictures totally don't do it justice at all. By the way, our tour guide was a 79 year old village woman with stamina like you wouldn't believe!!! The picture of Stu, me and a small lady in a trucker hat is her.

There was a guy at the top who was selling things. We wondered how on earth he got all that stuff up there and if he came up the wall every day. He was nice and hilarious. We've got a picture of him.

After our hike we went down to the village and had a vegetarian meal. They kept bringing out more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more food. It was totally awesome!

I slept the whole bus ride home. All of a sudden we were at Tienanmen square (right by our hostel). What a nice surprise!
Showered, and went to another smoken good place for dinner and had the same things we had yesterday, but even better!
There were some hilarious translations in the menu that will be pictured below... we laughed pretty hard.

Beijing:
Enough food to stuff 2 people: $7.00
Water: 2/1.5 RMB (22 cents for 2 bottles of water)

Tomorrow here is Dad's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

We might be on the road to Xi'an on your birthday in BC, but it's your birthday here tomorrow.

Anyway, that's all for tonight. We're just going to book a hostel in Xi'an (they all look totally sweet) and go to sleep! Goodnight!

Jin Bai Fa

Oh Beijing.
Oh so different than Shanghai. SO different.

Shanghai, to me, is the downtown Vancouver of China. At least that's the vibe I was getting.
Beijing reminds me of Mexico on steroids. Not for its beautiful weather but for its crazy vendors and pushy salesmen!

And boy does it smell rank.

Yesterday:

"Oh, hello, you are heading to the Forbidden City?"
"yes"
"Follow me, right here. You come see some of my art."
"Is the forbidden city over there?"
"Yes yes, very close!"
"Okay"
(somewhere in here he told me he thought I was Asian from behind because I'm petite. He thinks I'm petite! I'll follow him anywhere!)
Shows us art, shows us art, shows us art...
"So, this is your art?"
"No, these four are (shows us the four seasons) I am an art student and these art pieces are being sold for scholarships."
(ya... right... he looked like he was 50)
"We aren't going to buy them"
"That's okay. Have you been to the Great Wall? We have many tours!"

Then a guy right outside says:
"Have you been to Great Wall? I'll give you my car.."

uh...

Once in the Forbidden City:
"Hello! You go to Chinese Acrobatics Show. Tonight! Go tonight! Is very amazing. One motorcycle goes in ball people cheer, two go in people cheer, three, people amazed, four, many scared and leave. And face change opera. Very big secret in China. Some leak out and now Japanese do it, but was national secret for long time."

(still have no idea what he meant by face change opera, but I'm sure it's just fan freakin tastic)

Have I told you about our hostel?
It's totally huge. And in an alley (that freaks me out after dark!) But it's pretty nice. The staff are nice.
There are turtles and fish in a big pool thing in the front entrance.
Our room is... interesting.
Our 'twin bed' is two beds pushed together (but the sheets and pillows are nice so who cares?!)

Our bathroom is also our shower. Let me say that again:
Our bathroom is also our shower.

If you don't understand what I mean (which I didn't when Stuart told me until I saw it for myself) our shower head is literally right by the toilet. Like, the water will spray all over the toilet, all over the floor and that's where you shower!!! It is bizarre (and frankly, disgusting) and the water pressure stinks (almost as bad as the air outside)

Actual blog about yesterday:

Forbidden city was boring. I dunno. Maybe I shouldn't say that. But I feel like you've seen one giant impressive Chinese building, you've seen 'em all. I mean, it's interesting that it was an imperial palace during Ming Dynasty and stuff and it is really very impressive, but you can't go in any of the freaking buildings at all, you just walk around and read how they were made (most of them the same-ish way)...
The best part about it was reading about the concubines. (Mainly because it was disturbing/hilarious and the only building you could actually go in... the most useless one!)

Tienanmen Square was huge.

So in the evening there was this restaurant that we found on a Beijing travel website that sounded awesome and we decided to venture out and find it.
... Beijing is huge.
We finally found the road we needed to be on (after many people attempting to help us)
We looked for Jin Bai Fa for a million freaking years and asked EVERYONE we saw where it was and it felt like EVERYONE was certain of where it was and was pointing us in all different directions. We wandered down the same street for HOURS, literally HOURS asking for directions. We went to a newspaper vendor and showed him the symbols for the restaurant and he pointed literally right across the street... but it wasn't there! We thought we were just missing it so we went back across and looked and looked and looked but nothing! We asked someone else and they pointed us way down the road. We asked someone else and they told us we were on the wrong street! We would not rest until we found JIN BAI FA!!!!!
... but then we did.
Man, did we ever eat at an awesome place... and we found it all by ourselves!
Best Kung Pow Chicken and Egg Fried Rice I've ever EVER had. (Maybe it's cuz we were so freaking hungry)

After dinner we realized how long of a walk we had to find our way back to the subway. We walked... and walked... and walked... and walked in the dark. and... wait. did we miss it?

We asked someone who barely spoke any english and he had no idea what the frick we were talking about.
Then
It happened.

We saw two white people! Two glorious white people! We started talking to them and... oh my gosh! Their hostel was right by ours and they were heading back there with their Chinese friend who had a car! We were saved!

After talking to them for quite a while as we completely backtracked to get to this guy's car we found out that they were from Coquitlam! And the guy went to UFV and played on the basketball team and has a bunch of friends from MEI. Small, small world.

It was fun hanging out with them and they showed us their hostel and stuff.
Stu and I needed to get to bed early (10:30) because we had a 6:30 wake up call for the Great Wall so we went home.

The End.

Everybody knows morning butt and evening butt are two completely different butts!

We awoke nice and early this morning. We were NOT going to miss our train to Beijing!
First order of business? A quick trip to Cafe 85 for one last fix of maple bread and mango smoothies.
We got a couple of sugar twisty breads for the road and booked it over to the bank to take out enough RMB for the next leg of our journey.
We were tight on time so we quickly went back to the hostel, grabbed our bags, dropped off our key and ran off into the ... wait, how do we get to the metro station that gets us to the train station? We thought we knew. A guy from the hostel who spoke broken english told us to walk left out of the hostel 500 meters and then we'd find the line 3. We walked five hundred meters (or more!) only to find the street split into two and we didn't know which way to go. Also, it was a cobblestone street that did not look like a main road at ALL.
Went BACK to the hostel not knowing what time it was. (naturally I was freaking out) and asked the guy again. He said "Walk five hundred meters and I gaurantee you will see it."
A couple kilometers and roads and asking strangers later, there it was: the Number 3! WHAT A RELIEF!
Once we got off the number three, getting to the train station was another adventure. But we got there.
We thought maybe we should buy some water in the train station, but the price was rediculous (6RMB... Equivalent to less than a dollar CDN) but here in China, that's highway robbery! We thought we were being sooo smart and that they'd give us water on our 10 hour train ride.
The train station was PACKED FULL of people. It was the most crowded place in China I've seen yet.
When we got on the train there was a lady sitting in my window seat. You think I let her get away with it? NO WAY! I pointed at the seat number about 5 times at her and she kept shrugging (she was one of THOSEEE people) and finally the guy behind us told her to get her butt out of my seat (at least I imagine that's what he said... it was in Mandarin).
The train ride was long and there was no food or drinks served. We had to end up buying water for FOURTEEN RMB! The lady beside us was laughing in disbelief. We figured that it would be like someone buying a 500 ml bottle of water in Canada for 8 bucks. Oops. We didn't plan very well for that one.
The ride was long, but surprisingly tolerable considering we had no form of entertainment except a new card game that we played only once. (Courts of Medici) and the view out the window of the countryside and the shantytowns and the mounds of garbage.
When we got to Beijing we went on the wrong subway and got off at the wrong stop and asked for directions and these 2 nice people tried to figure it out on their GPS FOREVER and then they told us we wanted the line 2 not the line 4. Oops.
We were almost there, though and our spirits were high!
It was pitch black and getting late by the time we arrived near our destination. We walked and walked and walked and walked and it was SCARRY! Lots of drunk people, some cops, and the further we walked, the sketchier things looked.
A girl stopped us and asked if she could help us. She told us where to go (and she was right!) down this cool market street that was not at all scarry, but then into an alley that was scarry and pitch black.
We walked down it for a bit and then we saw a hostel. I told Stu that I wanted to go in and ask for directions to our hostel but then we found out that it WAS our hostel but it had a different name than it did on the hostel world website. (Well they should have TOLD us that!) It was a miracle that we stopped in there at all.
Our room is spacious but one hilarious and weird and grossish thing is that the bathroom is also the shower.... like, the shower is right there by the toilet.
It's bizarre. We'll take a picture and post it later.
That's all for now.
ps stu just walked in wearing a muscle shirt.