smelly china

This place reeks... The people in china do not have manners up to american standards... Theypick their noses publicly and shamelessly..shoot snot rockets in the walkways of the subway and don't use deodorant. Nasty.
MY friend Maryev is now travelling with me and we are doing shanghi and two smaller cities now before we head back to shanghi tomorrow and then beiking the next day... We are the only white people on the trains to these places so we are quite the entertainment.. She speaks chinese so they all talk and ask questions and then she translates to me... Thank goodness for her chinese or we would have been so lost and without a place to stay...we got into hangzhou yester and it was supposed to be one of the nicest and most serene places in china sice its around a lake but since it was a holiday for the chinese it was absolutely packed and hellish...it was a nice but crazy... Ill write more later

china highlights thus far

Beijingggg

The Forbidden City
- Absolutely stunning! We hired a tour guide to take us through since it is such a huge place..the entrance has a huge portrait of Mao on it haha... Once you enter you are in the like "officials" section and its a lot of asian style buildings and big open squares! There are no trees in the forbidden city to keep thieves away who could hide in the shadows... then you get into the emperors section of the city... The building throughout are pretty much the same but they are very beautiful! Then there are areas where the Empress lives and the concubines (spelling???) live...There are 9,999 rooms in the forbidden city...

Silk Street
-shopping! Annoying vendors who keep yelling and you and trying to pull you into their stores...

The Temple of Heaven
-hugee place with lots of asian buildings and big park areas...Really pretty

Pearl Market
-More shopping! Tons of cheap pearls...so they may be fake like everything else here

Olympic staduim
-Soo cool...I expected it to be much bigger but it was cool to go sit on the field and be in the stands of the Bird's Nest... The stadium is soo cool and itwas awesome to be where history was made! The water cube was a pretty cool building too although we didnt get to go in.

The Great Wall - Simatai to Jimshanling 10km hike
- By far the best thing i have done here...It was absolutely gorgeous and so amazing how grand it is in the middle of nowhere...Itmakes me feel bad for everyone that had to lug those bricks up the wall.. All men were summoned to create the different section of it and were though of as heros for helping to build it! Those that died during the bulding were buried inside the walls.. The portion we hiked separated mongolia from China... WE had our hostel book the trip for us since the section we hiked was 3 hours by bus north of Beijing so we were basically one of 15 people on the wall and we didnt cross paths will really anyone while hiking! It is one of the least touristy spots so that made it even more amazing! It was probably the hardest hike i have ever done... 10 km of constant up and down and endless stairs and hell basically but sooo worth it in the end... It took us about 4 hours to complete the 10km section remaining of this part of the wall...This is what i get for travelling with 3 guys haha...but I am soooo glad I did it and it is still so unreal that I actully got to climb the great wall... Can't wait to upload my pics!

Summer Palace
- Today we went to the summer palace which is basically a hugee park and lake area...Soo beautiful! The emperors would come to this palace when the Forbidden City would get too hot... It is hugeee... we walked the perimeter and it was so beautiful all around with big bridges and lakes and it was raining pollen so it had a little charming effect like it was snowing... There were more really cool asian style buildings and temples along the way... It was a nice long walk and relaxing after yesterdays great wall adventure!

The only downfall thus far have been the Squatter toilets(yuck) and the Asian tourists who greatly greatly outnumber foreign tourists...They come in huge groups everywhere so places get really crowded when a few groups come...i am surprised at how little i see foreigner travellors but it has been nice to be thrown into beijing...thankgoodness for the guys cause I would be sooo lost here, especially using the subway...

I will update as soon as i get a chance!

beijing!

- am finally here! It seems like forever ago when I was planning this trip! I am here with 3 of my guy friends! We got in at like 7 pm so we checked into our hostel and then went out for dinner. We walked through a street food market and they had scorpions skewered on sticks that were still moving! Yuck! They also had seahorses skewered and that was just sad... It was pouring all night so we were running through the streets with our umbrellas! Haha.. We have tons to see here (apparently Mao's body is saved "pickeled" if you will) and I can't wait to see that haha... We are making plans as we go since its rainy so hopefully it will clear up for our Great Wall day and the Fofbidden palace! I am so happy to be here!! I will try and keep this updated so hopefully I will have some good stories!!

not a loner

So i found some people to celebrate with last night! A few of us just sat on the balcony and drank the Franzia and just talked and listened to music... it was a really nice evening... Before I knew it, it was like 3:30 am and we had been sitting there since 11ish... 

Today i did some last minute shopping cause i leave for Beijing tomorrow!!! I just cant believe it! Ill be in Beijing for 2 weeks, Hong Kong for one week by myself, then a little over a week with my parents, then home!!! It is amazing how quickly time flies by!

I am going with 3 of my guy friends to beijing, then they leave half way through my stay there, and my friend Mary-ev from Theta who is studying in China is coming to meet me. We will then take a little trip to Shanghi by train or go to Tsingtao which is the beer making city! I can't wait! It will be so great traveling with these friends!!!

I will try and keep my blog updated while I am in china so read up! 

DONE!

Woo hoo! I am all done with my classes here! I just took my last final! It is suchhh a relief! Everyone either still has finals or has already left to travel so there is no one to celebrate with... So i went and bought a bottle of Franzia (so much classier than a box), and some m&ms to celebrate by myself... Don't worry, I am only having one glass of wine (if you can call it that)... and I am drinking it out of a Ikea much, even more classy... Tomorrow night i will go out to the horse-races with whoever is left here and then to Wan Chai for ladie's night as my last night in Hong Kong with everyone before I am back here by myself for a few days and then my parents come! I have some last minute things to buy tomorrow before i leave the next day for Beijing, and I return May 6th... 

The program I went through to come here gave us a present today of chopsticks with "The Chinese University of Hong Kong" written on it... they are actually really pretty so it was a nice little gift!  

Today has been a good day!

passport pages

So today Jackie and I ... Drumroll pleasse... Got More Passport Pages Put in !! I never thought that would happen... China has taken over my passport. I may as well be Chinese. I leave for Beijing in 3 days so i needed to make sure i got back into Hong Kong and wasn't stuck in China for the rest of my life haha... There was this crazy guy at the consulate who seemed like he was on drugs and it was pretty entertaining... he was telling this story about how he lost his wallet, was shaking, and how someone gave him 2,000 Hong Kong Dollars to get back to Macau or something cause he had to pay to update his passport or some ish like that... It was very strange but pretty entertaining... Other than that, i wouldnt recommend hanging out at the Consulate... 

I have my LAST final tomorrow and have cracked open my book a few times so that is what i will do after this... but its not til 6:30 pm tomorrow night so I still have plenty of time... 

Hope everyone is doing well. I know my family is cause they are on a cruise vacation without me.. i hope you all feel bad and miss me the whole time... JK.. but hope everyone is well! I will see you all in EXACTLY one month!

26 days til I'm 21!

more end of the year pictures

You can CLICK on the pic to make them bigger!

^ our table at the back of the banquet hall... they knew we would be trouble ;)

^ my friend from Mexico and from Italy... I'm a lucky girl!

^ outside of 7/11 because no night would be complete without it... please notice that i have no drink in my hand and that Jackie is drinking Chocolate milk... and richie is just very happy

^ I stole these glasses from someone... and yes I wore them in the club haha