Beijing!

So apparently I am miserably bad at updating blogs...

I've been up to a lot of things, the coolest of which being my trip last weekend to Beijing with 5 of my best girl friends here. We decided to be cheap and take the slow-moving train-horrible decision! We had hard seats, with people who only bought standing tickets crowding all around us, for fifteen hours!! Longest trip of my life-it was faster flying from Toronto to Shanghai than it was going from Shanghai to Beijing. Luckily I slept some so it didn't seem to be as freakishly long. We got there Friday morning and checked into our hostel, which was this gorgeous, clean, very home-y place called Sun Lu Tan youth hostel. That day we went to Tiananmen square, the Forbidden City, and Linshiang (?) Park. Tiananmen was actually kind of boring, it's just a really big square, until you remember the history behind it. I spent most of my time emphasizing with the guards who had to stand at attention all day and judging the marching of the ones going past us. The Forbidden City was really cool and huge!, but most of the actual rooms you aren't allowed in. The park we went to after was an unexpected highlight-you could climb up a ton of stairs to several pagodas that had awesome views of the Forbidden City and the rest of Beijing.

The next day we went to the Great Wall!!! Such an awesome experience! We went to Mutianwu, which is a less touristy part of the Wall, with some sections that haven't been restored available to explore. The Wall is seriously so impressive-you can see it snake through the mountains for miles. As impressive as it is now, it must have been awe-inspiring back in its heyday. The Chinese have another word for it-The World's Biggest Cemetery, since so many of their people died building it. We rode a ski-lift to the top then were able to explore some. It's actually much steeper than you'd imagine, some of the stretches had stairs so steep they looked like vertical drop-offs from above. Several of my friends and I bought beers and shot-gunned them on the wall, which might be the coolest thing I've done in China so far! Totally legal, too ;)

Our final day was spent in the Temple of Heaven, which again was very cool, but you couldn't see that much inside. Then we were all too tired to go anywhere else so we just went to the train station and hung out there...and got accosted by multiple Chinese men. Beijing was weird that way-Shanghai people stare, but Beijing people will actually come up to you, which is really annoying. I'm not sure I like Beijing as a city, it seems really confused as to what it wants to be, either the seat of the government, a rival to Shanghai, or an ancient relic? I think it's trying to be all of it at once. After another hellish 15 hours on a train we were home sweet home in Shanghai =)

Awesome Western-style Breakfast in Beijing

Great Wall group at an
 un-restored portion

Me, Natasha, and Jenn at the Temple of Heaven

Me with the Great Wall spanning behind me

Eating a scorpion! So crunchy!

Such an epic moment

And a snake! Better than it looks I promise!

Sledding down the Great Wall!

Mal, me, and jenn at Tiananmen Square

All of us at the start of our 15 hour train
(We were a lot less happy at the end of it haha)

My spring break starts next week-Mal and I are backpacking south, starting in the Yellow Mountains and finishing in Hainan, said to be the Hawaii of China. Should be an adventure!

Class Fieldtrip!

Wow, I haven't updated in a while...sorry about that! I just got back yesterday from a weeklong fieldtrip with my program that was amazing! We went first to Pingyao Ancient Town, which is mostly a Chinese travel destination not a Western one, so it was nice to not be so touristy. We stayed in a pretty little hotel that was traditionally furnished, complete with a big shared bed and sand pillows! We got to ride really old, almost ready to fall apart bikes around the city and we walked on top of the city wall, which was in pretty good condition for as old as it is! While we were there we went to the first bank of China as well as an old courthouse; both were honestly not that exciting, but oh well.
We left Pingyao after 2 days there and went to Shanxi's provincial capital, Taiyuan to see a famous courtyard and visit a vinegar factory...that was an experience! We were all crying and coughing from the fumes, but the vinegar was really good! Then we took an overnight train to Xi'an, which was admittedly a little dirty and disgusting haha. The next day was the highlight of the trip-the Terracotta Warriors!!! I was as giddy as Christmas morning by the time we actually got to see them, and they were all I had expected and more. There are actually three pits of warriors, Pit 1 contains 6,000 Infantry and is probably what you imagine when you hear "Terracotta Warriors", but there is also Pit 2, which is a 1,000 member Honor Guard including chariots and cavalry, and Pit 3, which is the Command Center. I was in love =)
After that we left for South Wutai town and went to a architecture/custom museum, then to Donghan village for a short homestay. To be honest I didn't really like the food there, but all the neighbors have a tradition of playing and dancing each night on the basketball court, which was such a cool experience! All the elderly women taught us Chinese line-dances, and we loved dancing to American songs like Cotton-eyed Joe and the Hokey Pokey!
After the homestay we returned to Xi'an and had a dumpling dinner, which consisted of over 14 different styles of dumplings, some of which were designed to look like what was inside-like a pig for pork dumplings, a duck for duck dumplings, and fish for seafood dumplings! The next day we visited the Muslim Quarter of Xi'an, which is populated by the minority group the Hui. We visited the Great Mosque and learned about the history of Chinese muslims, which was really interesting. Then we went to a local middle school and met with some students-the little girl I became friends with spoke English WAY better than I spoke Chinese! I joined in a game of basketball with what was supposed to be all middle schoolers, but ended up having three teachers! (we got destroyed) The next morning we got to bike around the Xi'an city wall, which was about 14K and in much better condition than Pingyao's wall. It was a great way to end the trip! If only I could avoid having to take midterms this week... =(

Pingyao City Wall

Pingyao Ancient Town

Our hotel room-very traditional Chinese style

Adorable courtyard outside our room

The really old bikes we rode around the city

Chinese prison cell haha

Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi'an

TERRACOTTA WARRIORS!!! (Pit 1)

Pit 2-Honor Guard

Pit 3-Command Center

"Mr. Lucky"-the only warrior to survive intact

Architecture/Custom Museum

Museum Architecture

On top of Xi'an's city wall

The view looking back from Xi'an city gate