China! So many things were so wicked amazing!
First of all- it was COLD. Yay! After visiting hot, humid countries I was excited to be in a place where I needed to wear my sweatshirt :) Walking around Hong Kong there was an interesting combination of poor shops and beggars alongside huge, modern skyscrapers and elevated walkways. At night we took a bus to the top of Victoria’s Peak which had the most beautiful view- everywhere we looked we could see the magnificent city below us.
After Hong Kong we braved the Chinese subway to the airport to get to Beijing. There were ten of us who had put together an independent trip with a Chinese tour group. The guy at immigration laughed when he compared my passport picture to my new short hair, but they let us all into China without any problems. Yay for China! I had so much fun trying to read the signs and listen in on conversations even though I could only pick up random words here and there- my Chinese classes were quite a while ago :) Our tour got us up and moving early in the mornings, we got to see many temples and palaces and the Forbidden City. And, of course, no visit to China would be complete without a visit to the Great Wall! It was beautiful. The sun was out, the leaves were changing colors, and we had a great view from the top! The wall stretched on FOREVER- on every mountain peak in the distance we could see more towers. It was amazing :) Besides the Great Wall and seeing all the other sites we also got to eat a lot of great (and sometimes not so great) Chinese food and visit some markets. In the markets we really got a chance to practice our bargaining skills that we’ve practicing in different countries- here we basically tried to pay about 10% or less of the asked price. It was a pretty intense and interesting challenge. We had a brief scare at the airport in Shanghai when first of all no one spoke English to give us directions and then no one had ever heard of the port where our ship was docked. After bugging all sorts of people who worked there we finally got a hold of two minivans to get us back to the Explorer. We were so glad to be back on the ship! Our last day was spent wandering around Shanghai before we had to say goodbye to China.
And that has been my most recent adventures! Now I am back on the ship listening to Flogging Molly and figuring out what I need to do for classes before we get to Japan. I have pictures I am going to try to put up here soon, I promise :) Things are moving fast, and between school and work and traveling there is not much (or any) down time… but things are going well! Send along any comments, questions, snide comments or favorite recipes! I love you all and hope you are well!
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