Anyone who has the slightest desire to visit Beijing, I am whole-heartedly supportive! This past weekend my friends Lauren, Lauren, Ali, Chantel, Ruth, Rachel and I went on the long 12 hour train ride to Beijing. We paid for beds, and it was a funny night sleep. Every ten minutes a chinese person would go into the squatters and hawk their lungs out. The chinese opera music came on over the speakers too. We slept surprisingly well!
Beijing was one of the best and craziest adventures I have ever had. We went to the Silk Market on Sat. It is to die for. They sell everything you can imagine in a six story indoor mall. The ladies are very intense, and will grab you and yell at you to buy what they are selling. They jack up the prices, and so you have to start betting at at least half, and act like you aren't interested. I bought some cashmere and burbery scarfs, converse shoes for like $12, a dress for like $15, while Rachel bought burbery perfume that is $80 in the states for $4, polo shirts for like $10, juicy sweat suits for like $10... and true religion jeans for $80.. and that was the first day. When we go back we will be able to bargain with more confidence, and buy things cheaper! They have uggs, vans, north face jackets, real pearls and jade... tiffany's jewelery.. does anyone have requests?
For dinner we went to Hard Rock Cafe! The band was Phillipeano and they were super friendly and funny, asking every table where they were from. There were people from all over the world, Sweden, Scotland, USA, and so on. But of course, everyone was over 30, and male, so the band naturally preferred to get a rise out of 7 american girls. They dedicated, "Bye, Bye Miss American Pie" to us, and came over and had us sing, and then this Scottish man asked Rachel to dance. Classic. We ate some burgers and brownie sundaes. We were in heaven. We went back to our great hostel with softer beds than our school has. It only cost $10. Then we woke- up and went on a tour with a place the hotel recommended to the Great Wall. We had about a three hour drive and it started raining. We all bought ponchos, but I had brought some plastic that covered my refrigerator in my room from the school. We looked ridiculous. Or maybe just me. Haha. The Great Wall is GORGEOUS! SO green, and actually the cloudy sky made for great lighting and photos. The rain stopped. We were not ready for the strenuous hike, so we got kinda warm, and it was nice that the weather was cool. Of course, the one time in my life that I visit the Great Wall, my camera battery dies. And then, ironically after the hike when I checked again, it was completely full. There aren't many times in my life that I have been that angry, but I guess it is pretty comical now. Luckily my friends all took pics. We hiked for about 7 miles and it took about 4 hours. We met people from all over the world. It was such a cool experience. There were stairs that seemed like they were 90 degrees, haha. It was so fun! Then at the end, we zip-lined across this really pretty river.
We got back to the hostel, got our bags and had 2 hours to find a taxi and get to the train station... BUT! there is a national holiday on Oct 1 (60th anniversary of the communism) and the streets were closed, there were crowds of people and groups of marching people practicing for the celebration. We tried to talk to police men, wave down taxis for 1.5 hours, hauling our bags up and down the streets, and it started raining. I had a feeling we should take the subway but the line we needed was 2 and the only line there was 5 (but i still had a feeling). I prayed with all of my heart and we said a group prayer.. the police men couldn't even get taxis, we had 20 min to walk before our train left. We decided to start running to the station but that didn't last very long, because we all had heavy bags and we were tired from the 7 mile hike from earlier. On the walk back it started pouring and we decided to go back to the hostel and go to the train station in the morning. As we were walking back, I had this feeling to just check the subway station to see if there was a way to catch up with our train at a different station by taking a faster train. So some friends waited and said if it didn't work we needed to hurry and go make sure the hostel would be available for the night. So I ran down and tried to talk to people but no one spoke English. I was in a foreign place, I couldn't speak the language, and i was trying to communicate that we had missed our train and we had to get back by tomorrow to teach. Then my friends came over and met this guy who spoke English who worked at the station and I told him we missed our train, so he called the train station. When he got off the phone he told me to go to the train station. After bad communication, Rachel, Lauren and Lauren heard that there wasn't a way to get back, so they went back to get the hostel. The other girls and me went on the subway to the station and luckily were able to transfer because this lady spoke English (which is so rare to find), and she helped us. She then went and talked to the ticket lady, and we were able to find a train that was fast enough to catch up with our initial train, and was stopping at the same station our initial train was. She told us we would have to sit on the ground but we wanted to do it anyway. I called Lauren and told them, but they were trapped in their hostel because there was a practice for the holiday and the streets were full of people, and police were guarding everything. Insane! How can the police force people to stay inside, but can't even get a taxi? HA! So we loaded the train.. get this... crowded room, more smashed than you can imagine. For three hours we stood like that. I found this little closet type thing where the water heater is and I stood there, and every five minutes someone would walk up and want me to fill their canteen with boiling hot water. The train would shake, and people would bump me and it would splash and burn! So hot! Finally we met this man who spoke English, and he wrote his name down to get a seat in case any opened up. His name was called and he got a bed, and he told us to follow him. We had to haul our heavy bags through the isles to the last train (#17). He told us to hurry. He was so sweet and sincere and he was not a sketchy person, but we knew what he was doing wasn't allowed. He said we could sit on his bed with him cuz it is a bottom bed that 5 people can sit comfortably on. We finally walk to #17 and the worker ladies ask to see my ticket. I didn't have one. We get caught but as he tries to convice them to let us stay we got to finally sit on soft seats in a dark corridor. This guy worker came and yelled and told us to go back to the front. We hauled all our stuff back and stood for another hour and then found room to sit on the nasty ground for 30 min and then we met another man who spoke English, (again not easy to find) who bought us beds! He was impressed that we had come to China to teach English. The beds were expensive and I didn't think it was possible to even buy one but we got our own soft bed for 2 hours. The attendant woke us up at 6 a.m. and we got off and our first friend who tried to sneak us to his bed stayed with us while we waited for our train to weihai. we boarded that and found our head teacher and we slept for a good 6 hours and it was the best sleep I've ever had. Now i am in my room safe and sound, and ready to go back! The other girls found their way back too, and I am so proud of them! Haha! I still can't believe how it all worked out! I can't wait to explore more of China!
