Adventuring Around

It has been a crazy five days.

On our second full day in Beijing we hiked the great wall of China, which let me tell ya isn't as easy as it sounds. It's over 1200 steps just to get up to the wall from the ground, not to mention all of the steps once you get on it. We went from watch tower 10 to 20 and then came back and went down to 6. It is amazing that it was all made by hand and is still in such a good shape. It is huge and beautiful. Though it's up high, you can't see very far because of all of the smog. It was so bad that I could barely breathe. Asthma + smog + exercise = not being able to breathe at all. Regardless it was still beautiful and it was fun being able to say that we hiked the Great Wall. 
After climbing The Great Wall, we were able to toboggan down, which is the sketchiest and least safe thing we possibly could have done! But it was simply amazing. After all, how many times can you say that you have tobogganed? Exactly. It was super fun. Just a piece of plastic with wheels and a break... sort of.

After that we went to the olympic park to go see the Bird's Nest and the Bubble. It was pretty cool and absolutely huge. The people here take a lot of pride in the Olympics and their country.
We then went to a family's house to learn how to make dumplings, which are very popular here. But they are soooooo good! Dumplings are time consuming to make however.
 That night we took the city bus over to the lake to check out the local night life. It was very western and very expensive, nothing like what we expected. It was an adventure finding the right bar and walking back, but super fun and the city is pretty at night.

Saturday was our last full day in Beijing. We crammed as much as we could in at one time. We learned how to make kites and write the characters for 1-10 in calligraphy, which is not easy at all! From there we flew our kites around and went over to an acrobatic show, it was the craziest thing I have ever seen. They were all award winning acrobat shows that went anything from the guy jump roping on top (on the outside) of a double hamster looking wheel and almost falling - they don't use harnesses, to girls twirling umbrellas on the tips of their feet to 7 motorcycles all doing tricks in a globe shaped cage. It was crazy! Then we were able to have free time to shop the local market which is like a five story shopping mall, except you bargain everywhere. We just looked but they will bargain pretty low and have all sorts of clothes. The subway ride on the way back was an adventure and our group got separated from each other, but somehow we all made it back in one piece.


Sunday we flew to Chengdu which is so different than Beijing. It has less smog, thank God, and is much more local. There are less people, less crowding, and yet it is still very westernized. We went to a local restuarant that was a 30 min walk from our hotel, it was good. Except I accidentally ate rabbit, thinking that it was chicken. Then we went out to a local foreigners bar where the bartender was from University of Washington and liked it so much here that he moved here. The nightlife is definitely busy here but it's fun.

Today we worked on getting all settled in in our rooms which are all on the 6th floor and there are no elevators. Chengdu is much more humid than Beijing and dirty. We have a great view of the city from our room and are enjoying it so far. We went to a local place for lunch where I tried frog, if you don't think about the fact that it's frog it's decently good, but once you start thinking about it it tastes gross.

I am still a little homesick and am trying to get adjusted to the culture. I'm still experiencing culture shock and am ready to come home, but I know that it will get better and be fun once I get over the initial shock. Well off to hang out and rest!

Zaijian!

Mandarin for goodbye. :)