Spring 2015 - Day 30 and 31: China
The wake up calls were really weird because they would come early and it sounded like a machine but somehow it would know if you didn't actually wake up an went back to sleep. Wizardry.
We actually made it to breakfast with time to spare. I ate Rice Krispies and my parents were able to call me. My phone worked!! Yay!!
Our first stop was a Kungfu school. I don't think anyone else knew what to expect going there. I was picturing a bunch of little kids because that is what I think of when I hear school and who I usually think of as learning martial arts. We also all thought we were going to be learning some Kungfu or at least learning about Kungfu.
We all went into a huge room where a stage was set up. We all sat in chairs and then they put on a show for us. There was a lot of guys all wearing these shiny red outfits, I have no idea how old any of them were. Probably in their mid to late teens.
They did some traditional Kungfu, which is based on the movements of animals. It was all really impressive. Then they did some crazy stuff. One guy broke a chunk of wood over his head. Another bent a huge metal rod with his neck. That looked incredibly painful. A third guy had someone break wooden poles over his back and shoulder.
Then two guys walked out, one with a plate of glass and the other with a balloon. One held the plate of glass up and the other held the balloon behind. Then this guy tried to throw a needle through the glass to pop the balloon. We are not sure if he actually had to break through the glass or if there was just a tiny needle sized hole he had to get it through.
Well, he would prep and then throw it and nothing would happen. He tried three times but couldn't do it.
Then his sensei came out and got it in one try. He just threw it and the balloon popped. I think that it was even cooler to see the student try and fail and then get to see his teacher come out and succeed, that was really incredible. It really showed that this was a school and these student, while incredible, are still learning.
When the show was over we were able to take pictures with them.
I think they were going to teach us some moves but some SASers found a basketball and so the Kungfu lesson turned into a basketball game. Sports need no language. I didn't participate but it was still a lot of fun to see our cultures come together.
We didn't spend all that long at the school and when we got back on the bus Lucia told us a little about the students that go there. That specific school has about 1000 students who all live there when they are at school. During breaks they can either choose to go home or to remain at school. Their daily schedule looks like this:
5:30am - wake up
6:00-7:00 - morning practice
7:00- breakfast
7:30 - classes (math, chinese, etc.)
12:00-2:00 - lunch
2:00 - kungfu classes
6:00 - dinner
6:30 - evening kungfu classes
10:00 - bed
I do not think I would want to live that life at all. I am not that disciplined.
After the Kungfu school we drove for a while and then stopped at a jade factory. Jade has a lot of meaning to the Chinese people. Its history goes back thousands of years and is connected to the soul and immortality. We were given a tour of the factory and were shown how the jade is shaped and polished. Then we were let loose in a huge Jade showroom. We were given the opportunity to buy some but it was very expensive and I don't really like the look of jade so I didn't buy anything.
Conveniently, our restaurant for lunch was right above the Jade factory so we just headed upstairs and had another family style/lazy susan meal. They were still just as delicious as before, I was not tired of them yet.
After lunch it was the moment we all were waiting for… The Great Wall of China. It was about an hour and a half drive so we were given quiet time to sleep but before she let us have quiet time Lucia left us with this tidbit:
"Why do we call it the Great Wall? Because it is great… and it's a wall…"
Classic.
When we got closer to the wall she told us some more things. The majority of the wall was built 600 years ago. But it was actually started 3000 years ago by an emperor who had all of the small walls around Beijing connected together. So all together it was built from 221 BC to 1644. It used to be 6000km long but much of it has degraded.
The wall itself is not uniform, it changes a lot. Some parts of it are very thin, only one person could walk at a time. Other parts of it are so wide that 10 horses could ride next to each other on it. She warned us to be careful of the steps because some are very large and then it will suddenly change to very short steps.
As we drove through the countryside we could see piece of the wall going through the mountains. Most of the wall is built on the top of the mountains so not only did enemies have the challenge of getting over the wall but also to even get to the wall.
We got off the bus and walked through a market that reminded me a lot of the markets in Morocco. We then boarded their shuttles and were taken a little farther up the mountain to the base of the chair lift. We took the chair lift to the top and then we were on the Great Wall!!
Once we were up there we could either hike to the left or right. We chose the left. The view was incredible, you could see the little town in the distance and all of the hills. It was a beautifully clear day and was actually very warm. We all peeled layers off as we hiked. And we thought it was going to be the coldest on the Great Wall so we were all bundled up. The nice day was a pleasant surprise.
We didn't hike very far because it was hard work! In some spots the stairs were almost vertical. We also stopped at almost every vantage point to take photos. We climbed to the top of each little watch tower, which offered an even better view.
It was vast, and beautiful. It certainly earned its wonder of the world title for a reason.
We had about an hour and a half to roam around and then we had to head back to the start because the last toboggan left at 4.
That's right, we got to toboggan down. Although I wouldn't really call it tobogganing, that was their word for it. When I think of toboggan I think on the wooden sled. This was more like a luge or an alpine slide. And it was fun.
We sat on a little chair and had a handle in front of us. You pushed the handle down to go faster and pulled it back to slow down. It was entertaining to watch the people who didn't read the direction try to figure out how to make it go.
The ride was fun and long. I have done an alpine slide one other time in my life when I was little. It was in Colorado and I remember absolutely loving it. I absolutely loved this too. I would do it again in a second.
When we were all down from the wall we gathered again and did some haggling to buy "I hiked the great wall" shirts. Jessi over paid for hers by accident but I think I got a good deal.
It was a lot of people's first experience haggling, just wait until we get to Morocco and that is the only way to buy something.
Eventually we were shuttled back down to the bus and drove an hour and a half back to Beijing to go to dinner.
The place we went to for dinner was beautiful. It looked like a temple and we had to walk through this little garden area to get to the dining room. I had to pee really badly so I just threw my stuff on a chair and found the line. Lucia said there was another bathroom on the other side with a shorter line but that one was only one hole so while the line was shorter it didn't move any faster. There was also a fountain right next to the bathroom and that did not help at all.
Even after going to the bathroom I felt absolutely horrible. I was really, really dehydrated but the water they served us was in a pitcher with ice so we couldn't trust it. I just ate some white rice and talked to Sam. I didn't have an appetite at all for anything else. When we got back on the bus to head to the hotel I grabbed two bottles of water from the front and chugged one of them. I felt better almost immediately.
Annie I had considered going to the Olympic village to see the birds nest but some guys had gone there the night before and said that it wasn't open and it wasn't lit up so there wasn't all that much to see. We decided against doing anything. Instead we went to the grocery store that was right by the ATM we had used to buy snacks. It was not like any grocery store I have ever been in. It was filled with the kind of bins fruit is in in a produce section but they were all filled with packaged things. We struggled to identify anything. Annie really wanted Oreos but they only had strawberry and birthday cake and I wanted Pocky but they didn't have any. We decided to check the store in the hotel.
The store also didn't have normal oreos but they did have Pocky so I got some of that and we went back to the room. Once I got into the room and sat on the bed I realized how exhausted I was. According the health app on my phone we had hiked 37 flights of stairs. That is how steep the great wall was. I was feeling it at that moment. I think that shower was even better than the one I had taken the first night.
I didn't even try to stay up to use the wifi, I went right to sleep.
We had to meet at 8 again and we made it to breakfast in time to have Rice Krispies again. That morning we were headed for the Temple of Heaven. It is a temple that is in the middle of a huge park. People gather in the park every morning and do exercises together. They do Tai Chi, play hacky sack, poker, dominos, and do prayer. We were given hacky sacks by Lucia so that we could play with them.
It was freezing outside. We had been fooled by the nice weather on the great wall and so had not bundled up, everyone was under dressed. Lucky I was just as bundled as I was every day and had my hand warmers on me. I broke one of those out and discovered that it had a sticky side so that I could sticky to my body. Stuck it right to my chest, it was wonderful.
The temple was less enjoyable because of how cold it was, it was beautiful but all we wanted was to be warm so we congregated in the two buildings that exhibited how the temple was built and the various things it was used for.
It was built three years after the forbidden city. The main temple is called the Hall of Good Harvest. The emperor would go there once a year to pray for a good harvest. They built the temple because they considered themselves the son of the god of heaven and so built the temple for their father, the god of heaven. The entire thing was built without nails. The temple itself is a circle, representing heaven and the area it was built on is a square, representing earth. The circle and the square together represents the universe.
We only spent about 30 minutes at the temple and then walked across the parking lot to a tea house. We were scheduled to do the tea house on the first day but since our flight got in later we didn't have time. Buses A and B went the first day and we were going now.
We watched a tea ceremony where they mix and prepare the tea while the woman told us all about the different teas. We were given tea tasting sets. It had a taller and skinny cup and then a shorter and wider cup. You pour your taste of tea in the tall cup, then you put the shorter cup over the taller one and flip it over so the tea drains into the short cup. Then you use the tall cup to smell the flavor of tea. Then you drink the tea in three sips. One for happiness, one for good luck, and one for a long life.
When you pick up and drink the tea you hold the little cup between your thumb and first fingers, your second finger rests on the bottom of the cup. Women hold their third and fourth finger out and men tuck them in. We tried 5 different kinds of tea.
- Ginsung oolong
- Flaming tea
- Leechy tea with rose petals
- Baby tea/ Jasmine tea
- Fruit tea
The fruit tea was absolutely delicious, I bought some of it. I like sweeter teas so I didn't like many of the teas we tried. The first one was pretty good, the second was way too bitter, and the other ones were ok. The fruit one was by far the best.
After the tea house we got back on the bus and went to lunch.
Lunch was another lazy susan meal. No surprise. It was basically the same things except there was a beef and mushroom dish that was absolutely delicious. I ate mostly that, it was so good.
I made the decision before lunch that I was going to steal the chopsticks from the restaurant. I had never found any that were really nice and the ones we had been using in the restaurants were nice and sturdy. They wouldn't notice, there was so many of us it was chaos when we were leaving.
After we ate I just slipped two pairs into my shirt. So now I have really nice chop sticks that I am going to use all the time.
Right after lunch we headed to the airport. On the way Lucia told us that the terminal we were going to, terminal 3, was built specifically for the Olympics. It was designed to look like a dragon and was the largest airport in the world.
Holy crap, I believe that. It was huge. I don't even know how to describe it. There were rows and rows of check in desks. They weren't against the wall like you see in most airports. Instead they were back to back in the middle of the room. The rows of them went on forever. There were two floors of them! It was insane.
I had pee so badly so we got in line to check in, I left my stuff with Annie, and ran to the bathroom. I knew I had plenty of time, the line was really long and was made up completely of SASers.
When I got back we stood in line for about a minute until Lucia told us they had opened up more check in desks right behind us. We turned around and walked right up to them.
Tangent: I just looked up to see if it is actually the largest airport in the world. It is not. It is the second largest airport terminal after Dubai International Airport's Terminal 3 and is the 6th largest building in the world by area covering 3,700 acres of land. If you're curious, because I know you are, the largest building in the world is the Boeing Everett Factory in Everett, Washington. Oh wait, that is the largest by volume. The largest by area is the New Century Global Center in Chengdu, China. It's a multipurpose building and I tried to calculate how many acres it covers but it didn't make any sense when I did it so we will just leave it at that.
Anyway, after Annie I checked in we headed straight for the security line. We passed under the international flight sign and then boarded a small tram. The tram stopped twice, once at the domestic flights terminal, where I expected the majority of people to get off but no one did. Then it stopped at the international terminal were everyone got off. And we were packed into that tram like sardines so it as a lot of people.
It was then that we understood why we got to the airport 3 hours early. It was the most thorough security inspection I have ever been through. Before we even went through security we had to go through immigration. Until the 90s Hong Kong as owned by the UK, then it was given back to China but it still is considered its own territory. Because of that our flight was international and we were technically leaving China. We had to forfeit our departure cards that we had guarded so carefully.
We didn't have to take our shoes off for security but after we went through the metal detector every single person was patted down thoroughly. And I mean thoroughly. I thought the ship was intense. Nope, this was intense. She checked all my pockets, felt up my butt, and went over my arms twice. But instead of feeling really violated I instead felt very safe. I think it's because they were being that thorough with everyone instead of being selective like they are on the ship.
They also went through my bag. They were pulling a lot of the bags off and going through them if they couldn't tell what something was on the x-ray. They basically just pulled my toiletries out and ran them through the machine again.
I walked away from security feeling completely confident and safe, which I liked.
Annie and I knew that we wanted food, and we had almost 2 hours until our flight, but we decided to find our gate and see what was around there. Usually that is a solid plan but our gate ended up being a million miles away in the middle of nowhere.
There was a tiny coffee place and a bathroom near it, nothing else.
We left our stuff with another SASer, Sarah, and trekked back towards all the duty free shops. The first one we went in had some snacks but most of them were weird. They had some Pocky but only very strange flavors of it. I ended up getting white chocolate covered blue berries and dried cherries. We then went in another store that had all the candy in the world. Some American stuff and a lot of European stuff. There was a lot. They had the dark chocolate covered fruit that I love so I grabbed two bags of it, one raspberry and one blueberry, and Annie got two bags of blueberry and a bag of M&Ms.
We headed for the checkout counter and the lady there told us that those fruit things were buy three get one free.
Awesome. So I combined our four bags together into my purchase. She flagged down a guy and he brought her a pomegranate bag. "A gift from me," she said. And then she rang me up. When I got the receipt she had charged me for four of the bags and so I ended up with five. I told her I had only wanted 4 total. She was very confused, took the bag back from me and showed me the pomegranate one, "this the free one."
"But I don't want that flavor. I want these flavors."
"But this the free one."
She kept showing me a sticker on the back of the pomegranate one. We went around in circles like that for a while until I understood that only the pomegranate one came free so if we wanted the flavors we had chosen we would have to buy all four of them.
So we ended up with a random free pomegranate flavor and not really saving any money.
We may have been scammed but also not really because we still paid what we expected to pay. It was so confusing and took forever.
We were done shopping after that ordeal and headed back to the gate. There we just hung out and watched Trevor do yoga in the middle of the airport. We boarded at 5:00pm. It was another huge plane with two aisles. By some miracle Annie and I were sitting next to each other.
My plane was to just sleep the entire flight, I was exhausted and they provided us with a pillow so I had high hopes. When we started taxing the TVs showed a live feed of the runway. It was pretty cool. We could see us in line to take off and then were able to watch us take off. It was a view right out of the front of the plane and then as soon as we were off the ground it switched to a belly view so we were looking straight at the ground.
Awesome.
I fell asleep right after that because it was nice and dark in the cabin but when they started serving drinks they turned the lights on and it was blinding. It was also a very noisy flight, all the other SASers were very chattery. We were on the flight with the program that had hiked the great wall so we talked to them about what that was like and what else they had done.
All I really wanted to do was sleep though so I was really frustrated with how loud and bright it was. I was listening to music so I just tried to relax.
I fell asleep for a while and when I woke up they had already served the meal and were coming around offering more drinks and cleaning up. When they got to my row the lady leaned over to me and told me to turn off my phone. I had been listening to music with my phone tucked under the pillow on my lap. I had pulled it out to play candy crush. so she saw it. Apparently you are not allowed to have cell phones turned on, even on airplane mode. She showed me where it said they were not allowed on the safety information sheet and then made me show her that I turned it off.
Apparently the airline is stuck in the early 2000s because the safety message video in the beginning of the flight feature the oldest and clunkiest laptop I had ever seen and in the diagram showing that no cell phones were allowed the picture of a cell phone was a dinosaur.
I powered my phone back on after she left and made sure to keep it hidden, which was depressing because that meant I couldn't play candy crush to occupy my time.
I pulled out the magazine in the seat back pocket and read it. It had articles in Chinese and then the translation in English. There was one article about Penelope Cruz that was absolutely, ridiculously funny. At least, the translation was. I ripped it out and kept it so that I could share:
"Renowned as het Spanish Tulip, Penelope Cruz is like a lingering, pleasant aroma. Sexy and passionate, she would capture the glaze of all men on earth, be it adoring, admiring, or greedy, and also, the glare of all woman, be it envious, jealous, or animus. If we forget about her hot body, she is really not a beautiful woman in the strict sense: eye sockets too deep for a young lady, a wide lower jaw, and a big mouth. In some red-carpet photos or street snaps, she even seemed a layman of fashion. But anyone who had seen her in movies would never forget the purity, candidness and some willfulness in her pair of arresting eyes. She is like a first love, simple, determined, and not afraid of betrayal by time, a woman whom one would love to adore and to pursue even to the end of the world and the end of time."
I typed that out exactly as it was, typos and all. And yes, it does say 'glaze of all men.'
When I got to the back of the magazine there was a sudoku puzzle! The one in my magazine was already filled out so I stole the one from Annie's seat. Something to do, yay!
When I was done with the puzzle I remembered that I had stuck the postcards I had bought into my bag so that I could write them on the plane. That killed about 40 minutes and made the time go by faster.
By the time I had finished writing they had announced we were starting our decent and were about 30 minutes from landing. The little map with our route came back on the screen and it showed that our plane was past Hong Kong. It was in the middle of the ocean and was going past Hong Kong. Weird. But our time to landing kept going down and we slowly turned back around and headed for Hong Kong.
My anxiety kicked in at that point. I am not really a nervous flyer but with all of the incidents with planes in Asia over the last year and a half I was a little uneasy. People joked about being hijacked or disappearing before, during, and after both of our flights, but I think everyone was actually a little nervous about it.
Right before our flight to Hong Kong we learned about the plane that had crashed in the Taipei river only a few days earlier. Asia was not having luck with planes so the fact that we were past Hong Kong was unsettling and I got a bit anxious.
But none of the flight attendants seemed too concerned and eventually we touched down right around 9:30. It seemed to be a very foggy night so we must have been waiting for visibility or clearance to land. Our landing was not very smooth, we skidded a little.
When we got overland the live feed came back on the TVs so we were able to watch us come in. I don't think I like the live feed camera. I did for taking off but for landing in the dark you couldn't gauge distance or speed so a few times it looked like we were going to land on the freeway.
But we arrived safe and sound.
Getting off the plane took forever. We were all standing around wonder what the heck was happening. Turns out that we were getting off onto the tarmac and there was one shuttle bus taking people back to the main terminal, so we kept having to wait for it to leave and come back.
I ended up standing on the stairs for a while and jammed out with Trevor to some Taylor Swift. We watched the planes taxi by us. They were HUGE. I thought our plane was huge but no, it wasn't. These planes were double decker, it was insane.
Once we got in the airport we had to go through immigration since Hong Kong is not apart of mainland China. We had to fill out a little arrival card and then hang onto the attached departure card for when we left.
By the time I got through immigration it was 10:30. We loaded on another bus that would take us to the port. The tour guide we had on that bus just told us some general information about Hong Kong and answered some questions.
At one point we went over the longest bridge in the world that is for both cars and trains. There is also a separate road underneath the bridge that they use in case of a typhoon. Pretty smart if you ask me.
Annie and I were both starving since neither of us had eaten the food on the plane and the tour guide told us there was a McDonalds right around the corner from the ship. We followed the tour guides instructions which took us into the mall.
Apparently the area that the ship was docked in had three different malls with a total of 700 stores and you had to walk through one of them to get to the ship.
We ran into a guy who told us that the McDonalds in the mall was closed but that there was one outside. So we followed him back the way we came and just a little bit down the street to right in front of the ship. A 24 hour McDonalds! Woo!
We were joined by two other SASers and we all got food and sat and used the wifi for a very long time. Other SASers can and went around us and we even saw Joel, one of the crew members. We finally got in line to get back on the ship at 12:30. There were a lot of people leaving to go out for the night and Annie was contemplating it. I had thought about it too when we had first arrived at 11 but now that it was past midnight I was solidly in the no zone.
Getting back on the shop didn't take all that long. Stephanie was already asleep so I just threw all of my stuff down and went to bed. So tired.
