May 12, 2016 (Beijing Update)
One Saturday April 30th I headed of to Beijing
for an 8 day vacation! Since I wanted to see the terra cotta warriors, I went
with a different ILP group. I took a bus to meet up with them. Our flight was
pretty late so we didn't we to our hostel till 3 in the morning. We slept in
then meet up around 11 in the morning, where we headed out to the pearl market
and the temple of heaven, but first we got food at this cute little Chinese
restaurant where I got yummy dumplings! The pearl market was so fun!!!!! I like
to barter cause you can things really cheap, I've learned to enjoy it. We then
went to the temple of heaven, it was such a beautiful temple! My favorite part
was this band was playing music and everyone (except us: we just enjoyed the
music) was singing along to the song that was being played. We also played this
hackie sac type game with some Chinese people for an hour! It was so much fun
even though we weren't very good 😂 Afterwords we went to the shops
near our hostel and a dinner of yummy chicken and vegetables! Then I got to the
hostel and crashed. The next day I had an awesome hamburger and hot chocolate
at a nearby hostel, then we headed to the Olympic nest and Water cube where the
olympics were held in 2008! It was so amazing to see where it all took place
and it was the perfect day for it since it was pouring rain outside! Both
stadiums were enclosed so we could escape the rain. In the cube near the
Olympic pool, there was another huge pool area with slides. Almost like and
indoor water park! After that we went to the night mark and I tried fried
ice-cream and this grape drink with dry ice that was good! The other girls
tried scorpion but I was to much of a chicken to try it! Then we went back to
the same place for dinner, where I had a yummy strawberry crepe! My
hostel roommate was so cute! She couldn't speak English very well but loved to
talk to me! It was her birthday so at midnight I sang her birthday and she was
so excited about that! One of the other girls there gave us all keychains from her
hometown, mine was a camel and i love it so much!!! The next day we went to the
forbidden city, which was so cool! There was a couple different Throne rooms
for different purposes, and of course we left through the way mistresses would
enter into the city😂 We took a hike up a hill after and at the top we could
see the city in all its vastness, and let me tell it was huge! We then made our
way over to the summer palace, which was so beautiful! There was a variety of
buildings and the view around the palace was so amazing! Not to
mention the view of the actual palace! We then went to dinner at the same
hostel as we did the other day! I got a great egg and cheese sandwich! We then
walked around the shops some more. A night before we meet this nice shop owner
and every time we passed by the waved excitedly to us! We crashed early since
we had to wake up early to head to the Great Wall! In our tour group we had so
many people from all over the world! There was a cute girl from England named
Abby, a guy from California named Bobby, people from Italy, a guy from France,
one from Ukraine, and a couple from the United state but the women was
originally from Eastern Europe! The wall was amazing, but quite a butt work out
since we were almost always climbing up! We went to a less crowded place on the
wall and we same maybe one to two other people beside our group! The view was
incredible! Once we got back to our hostel we got our stuff and headed to the
train station to catch our overnight sleeper train to Xi'an! It wasn't bad at
all I just read a slept the whole time, and I had a bed where I could sleep so
that was nice! Once we got of the train we got breakfast at McDonald's, which
made me so happy! Loves the hot chocolate, hash brown, and egg mcmuffin! Once
we got to the hostel we just relaxed, which was nice since we so much in
Beijing. At around four we went to a pagoda and when got some food and wandered
around the Muslim market here! Plus we found some frozen yogurt and doughnuts
which made me so happy!!! The next day we saw the Warriors, which were so
amazing! We took a tour and our Tour guide was so cute and told us the history
of the Warriors and how to tell the difference between each rank of
the warrior! She took us to this place where we were showed how the Warriors
were made, Which was way cool! A buffet lunch was included with our tour guide.
It was so fun to try so many different Chinese foods, like Chinese hamburgers,
rice, noodles, a bread with a sweet filling, a dessert that tasted way better
than it looked, and lots of other things! Needless to say I was stuffed
afterwards! After the buffet we had a tea ceremony where we tried different
types of tea, jasmine was my favorite! There was this little boy teapot and
when the water got poured out it made it look like he was peeing 😂 After the
Warriors we went on top of a wall that surrounded the city, then to a bell
tower which is in the center of the city, and the drum tower ( which are so
pretty at night!) we then ate street food and shopped at the Muslim market
where there was this a amazing band performing. The next day we didn't do much,
we went out and got dumplings for lung and dinner then we watched some street
performers and went to this really cool water show! The next day I went to the
oldest Mosque in China, it was so peaceful (especially for there being a market
outside) there was a sundial there which was 1 out the only four in China. We
then hung-out at the hostel until we left for the airport. I stayed the night
at the groups and got to experience their cafeteria the next day. I took a bus
and finally got at 8 at night on Monday. The trip was so amazing and I meet so
many incredible people and saw so many incredible things, but it was nice to
get back to the kiddos that I missed❤️
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