China-Day 6

The last day we spent doing my favorite (and what I'm most skilled at) thing: shopping!

This building is known as the Pearl Market and you can find a little of everything here. They have other more concentrated markets in Beijing, but this one is very famous so we decided to hit it up!Inside I bargained like a cheap Jew. But to be fair they were asking crazy high prices and I believe that they know that most travelers are too lazy to do the math to figure out how much they are paying so they don't bargain. I wanted a good deal, not just pay something I could afford. I'm starting to get scared about how much like my father I am. I bought two t-shirts from this girl. She wanted to sell them to me for the equivalent of $50 I got them both for $12, which I don't think is a steal but it's reasonable. She slapped me and told me I was crazy the whole time I was shopping though.

After shopping we were starving. So we set out to get some Peking Duck. Here is the Chef cutting our duck.This is our sides and duck.

It tastes best with some sauce, onions and wrapped in a bread similar to a flour tortilla.

Then we headed to the airport and back to Seoul. It felt nice to get back home. I like traveling but I think I'm done this year. I took 4 international flights already this year and had to deal with visas and dysentery and customs too many times. If you need to see me come to Seoul.

China-Day 5

Day 5 we spent most of the day at the Great Wall. We had to hike quite a bit to get to the good views from the wall. But we spent a good bit of the day in the car to get to the wall. We went to a less touristy area of the wall. There were probably about 30 people in our tour group and besides that there was no one else on the wall where we were. It was nice to not have a huge amount of people around. The view was breath taking.

It was also very steep in parts!

Parts were well kept, but that added to the character of the place.

It's a really long way.

After this when we got back to the hostel we showered and hung out in the hostel all day. They were having a party to celebrate the Moon Harvest Festival (or something like that..). We got to sample free food (which you know I never miss) and we drank some drinks. We needed a relaxing night to make up for all the work we did today...

China-Day 4

Day 4, we are determined to have a better second half to our trip. Looks like the weather will be accomodating so we head out.

First we catch the train to the electronics market in Beijing. Shea, the tall boy, wants to find a camera so we roll out. So crowded ALL the time...

We get to a really shabby market first and they have just a handful of cameras. But we did happen to find a really nice one. But the seller was kind of not nice so we didn't buy and we left. We made it to a much nicer area with a huge selection. We can tell that we will be paying a little more but the service is much better. We walk in a look at a couple cameras. We ask the price and because I make a gesture like "I can't believe that you are asking so much for this" a young (no older that 18ish) boy takes us through some back hallways and up an elevator. When we get to our destination we are greeted by a bunch of camera salespeople. They ask ridiculous high price and I say "wow, that's expensive." They hand me a piece of paper and ask what I want to pay. I put down a number less than half of their original asking price and wait to be laughed at and escorted from the building. They look at my price and smirk so we all get up and walk out. As we are walking out, salesmen in the hallway were asking us to buy their cameras and the people we just dealt with take our price. Shea got a new camera at that moment. It was good.

All that bargaining made us hungry so we ate for lunch. This is something we don't know...

This is a tofu dish...

This is a rice pastery, we think...

After the morning shopping we head out to some famous places around the Beijing area. Like this government building... And this museum...

And this People's Monument in Tienamen Square.

A nice view

One of the gates. Story here. As we are looking at this and taking pictures a man comes up to us and tells us this story about how today is a special day because tomorrow the Eqypt president or whatever is coming so today foreigners can go up in the tower and get a good look. Not that we aren't skeptical but we go anyway. We have nothing else to do...

A lamp in that tower...it was made in China. Look at the bottom of it.

This is the entrance to the Forbidden City.

We entered and saw this and a lot of this. The whole "city" is this and there is a lot of it. Most boring city EVER!

This is the Imperial Garden.

Mom, for you.

As we were heading back to our hotel we saw this {lake?} anyway it was beautiful to me so I took a picture of it...Then later that night we went to a Kung Fu show. Not that it was horrible, I just felt that my Taekwondo could come in handy too...They did do some crazy stuff I wouldn't and the kids in the show were beyond amazing. Heading through the night market in Beijing.

Then we went to bed. Early rise for the Great Wall tomorrow...

China-Day 3

So as the city of Xi'an isn't that big we do the next thing that looks interesting to us. That is GO TO THE ZOO!! We are excited about reliving the days of our youth and seeing animals we haven't seen in a while. Let's just say there was trouble starting the minute we left the house.

First we had trouble catching the first bus of the day. We didn't know that the bus stop looking place with a bus schedule on it was NOT the bus stop. But after realizing the bus wasn't stopping for us we decided to find the actual stop. Once we got there we were suprized how long it took for our bus to come...then we realized that the buses were stopping in two different places. Ok, but we finally figured it out and got on a bus. Now, this wasn't the only bus that we needed to be on. We needed to take the bus to the park and transfer to another bus. We got to what we thought might be the park and got off the bus. We tried to ask if we were in the right place and if the bus #9 would stop at the place we were at or if we needed to go somewhere else.

While we were asking about our bus, it arrived. We got on with a couple other Chinese people. As we got on the driver lights a cigarette (on a no smoking bus) and the driver's assisstant tells everyone to get off. Since we don't really know what is going on we stay on and try to ask what's going on. The assisstant tells the driver (we assume) to start the bus and away we go. While we are moving she asks us for bus fare. She points to a ticket and the number on the ticket could have only been a 6 or a 9. Jess gives her a 10 and we get 2 tickets and 2 ones back. No matter how you do the math, this just doesn't make sense. But we go with it.

The bus heads along and Jess and I are somewhat worried because we are the only people on the bus and the driver is passing all the stops and not picking up any passengers. Then we stop for gas. They ask us to get out of the bus, so we do...At this point we wonder if we will end up at the zoo or if we will be part of a human trafficing scandel. But Jess assures me we are going to the right place because there is a bird on the bus ticket we bought so it must be headed to the zoo.

We did however finally make it to the zoo. A relief because we weren't sold into white slavery and let down because this is the zoo from hell. We should've left right away when they told us that there were no pandas. But we were determined to have fun at the zoo. As soon as we get in the park we are totally disgusted. First, you can't really walk, it's too big. So everyone piles into these tour buses and goes together. No getting out all the pics are taken from the bus. Not to mention that there was this hug douche bag on the bus trying to take all the window seats with his water bottle and bags. I sat in a seat with nothing in it and he proceeded to yell at me...whatever. Half of the animals that we were supposed to see weren't even there. No where to be seen. The ones we did see weren't in the best of conditions. They were underfed and dirty After the tour there were some building that you could walk around and look at smaller animals in. Like fish and the like. We found a building of monkeys. They looked sooooo sad. It was the worst conditions for an animal. A big concrete box with no vegetation (even fake) inside. No place for the monkey to play. Terrible.

The zoo was a total let down. It was abandoned and rundown and the animals looked so sad and scared.

But after we got back near the city we lifted our spirits a bit with this Xi'an famous pork sandwich. It was DELICIOUS!!! Really greasy but whatever, soooo good!

After the sandwich we got on the bus and headed for the airport and Beijing. I want to say that this was an easy, well planned flight. But I would be lying. We left like an hour late for our less that 2 hours flight. On top of that we had to stop in the middle of nowhere. Our flights said "non-stop" but that would be a gross exaggeration of the truth. Anyway we made it to Beijing late, but whatever...This was needed.
Some snacks we tried in the airport. We met up with our buddy Shea at the airport and headed to our hostel.

It was a nice enough place. Hot showers and comfy beds and an in house bar. Not bad really. We were tired so we all passed right out.

China-Day 2

So here's Day 2. We woke up sort of early to go see the Terracotta Soldiers. According to wikipedia: is a collection of terracota sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of China.
The figures, dating from 210 BC, were discovered in 1974 by some local farmers near Xi'an, Shaanxi province, China near the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor.
The figures vary in height 1.83–1.95 metres (6.0–6.4 ft), according to their roles, with the tallest being the generals. The figures include warriors, chariots, horses, officials, acrobats, strongmen, and musicians. Current estimates are that in the three pits containing the Terracotta Army there were over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which are still buried in the pits.

First we head off to the train to catch a bus to the site of the Warriors. On the way to the station a Chinese man tried to pickpocket me. But my stealth reflexes and skills scared him off and I walked away with all my belongings and a lower opinion of the Chinese. I have been to 6 different countries and the only country thus far to have any person try to pickpocket me was in China. No worries though, I walked around the rest of the trip BEGGING another cheap bastard to try and take my money so I could teach him and American lesson (via Korean Taekwondo) about taking what's not yours...

Back to the soldiers. The basic story is that a farmer found them back in 1974. When the government found out about them they paid the farmer $5 (which isn't even enough to cover the entrance fee to the park today) and built a park around them. They are STILL working on digging up the rest of the soldiers.
We ate some corn and pea ice cream for a snack and headed back to the city.

After we got back we had dinner. Pearl tea...

Sweet and sour pork...

Let's call this "crazy spaghetti"...

After dinner we headed back to the market and went down a different road. Jessica bought souveniers this time. We picked up some pasteries on the way back to our hotel and then went to bed for the night.

China-Day 1

I want to preface the whole trip with a couple facts that I found to be true about China. First I think the Chinese people we dealt with were super rude. Not all Chinese are that way but about all the Chinese that we bought things from or went to restaurants for or anything, rude. When we bought stuff many times the change or the thing we bought was thrown back at us. We thought it might be a cultural difference but then we noticed they didn't do it to other Chinese people. This, I think, goes hand in hand with another observation, their English ability is low. Now as a person from the States, a place that REQUIRES you to speak English or die, this was out of control. Ok, I get that I'm not speaking your language. I want you to know English but we can work with the language barriers, I can get around them. But to basically refuse help or service to me because I can't speak Chinese is rude. These two things made it difficult to get around and obviously buy things. Basically I wonder how deep the hate for white people is there. I do want to mention again that this is not EVERY Chinese person and some people were nice, just the majority weren't.

Food: not what you get in the American Chinese Buffet...Also I think that Colonel Sanders came in and killed General Tso because we didn't find any of his chicken. There were however so many KFC's...

Now on to our show...

The first day of our trip. We had a 2 hour flight to Beijing, China. Since we didn't think they would be feeding us on the plane we decided to grab "some" snacks!!! Some EPIC snacks!!! A Korean guy on the plane told us that these snacks were for kids. We were aware and didn't care...

Once we got to Beijing we met up with Jess's sisters. Then boarded a flight to Xi'an (pronounced She-an)Shortly after arrival we booked a room at this hotel:We are rich in China...

After we booked our room and put out luggage in our room we headed to the mall. As you are aware I love many things about malls. Clothes, shoes, stuff in general. But in a foreign country the mall can give you a good idea about how the people live. What they wear. What's important. That kind of thing. We ate dinner at the mall Food Court. We had sooo many options!

Next we went to a couple tour spots. The Drum Tower and the Bell Tower...Then got some Haagen Daaz and went to the night market.

I love night markets because you can get corny little trinkets and see crazy foods and bargain with the people. This one did not disappoint. After walking the maket for a while and purchasing some things we headed back to the hotel for the night.