Shanghai

Hey everyone! After we left Beijing by train we went to Shanghai. We didn't have any required appointments there, so we could do whatever we wanted. It was nice, and much more relaxing. But we were only staying there for three days and since we were leaving on the third day we only had two days to see one of the biggest cities in the world. The first thing we did was go to the Shanghai Museum. Supposedly it was going to be the best museum that we had ever seen. They had a few really cool exhibitions, like the exhibition on Cathrine the Great, an important figure head in Russian history. They also had an exhibition on the history of pottery in China, and they had different examples from different eras.

As you can see, some styles were really different and interesting.
We went to the street near our hotel that was the big shopping disctric. We went at night, and I bought a sweatshirt!

We didn't do that much shopping, but it was fun to see the different shops and stuff. Lesly, one of my roommates, and I went to Starbucks! It was fun, but they didn't have as many drinks as they do in America, and it was really expensive (American prices).

We walked around the street, and then at the end of the shopping street is the Shanghai harbour.

After that, we just went home since we were tired from all that traveling.
The next day we tried to go to the History of Science and Technology, but we couldn't get in so we just went home to relax a little.

Beijing

After we went to the Great Wall, the next day we went to a different the Temple of Heaven. That was pretty interesting, I met a lady from Israel. The Temple of Heaven was a temple that the emperor visited to worship Shang Di, who is the god of China's original religion. Most Chinese don't worship Shang Di anymore, but a lot of them appreciate the religion of the past. The religion worships Shang Di, and then the five elements under his control. It was a very beautiful temple, but my camera died at the time, so I don't have very many pictures there. When we were done at the Temple of Heaven we went to the Pearl Market that was near by. They are really famous for having cheap pearls. The only thing that is annoying is that the sellers there are very aggressive about selling and they will actually drag you into their stores. So it's pretty exhausting to shop there.

The next day was Sunday, so we went to an international church. Went to dinner around the area where the Silk Market was (which as you can guess sells silk) and while we were at the restaurant we found an example of classic Chinese attitude towards foreigners. We were looking at the menu and we saw that it was pretty expensive, so we were thinking about leaving and instead we decided to stay. When we went to look for the waiter to make our order, we found a menu that was all in Chinese (though we could understand most of it) that had prices for Chinese that were about a third of the price. So we ordered from the Chinese menu, and made the waiter frustrated cause we wouldn't pay the foreigner price. After that we went to the Silk market and went shopping, but we didn't stay for long because it was just as exhausting as the pearl market.

On Monday we went to the Summer Palace, and I had to give a presentation for a homework assignment. Once again it was really cold, but even more so than any other day. Each person had a history assignment to give a presentation on a book that we read. My book was a touristy book about the Summer Palace so, unlike most everyone else, I had to give the presentation like a tour. It was actually a lot of fun, to finally see the thing that I had been reading about. The Summer Palace is the place that a lot of emperors and empresses stayed during the summers, and sometimes even ruled from there. It was built like a painting, with a lot of lines and balance, making it really beautiful scenery.

On Tuesday we checked out of our hotel and left for the Forbidden City before we got on the train for Shanghai. We walked through Tienanmen Square and looked at the big picture of Mao, then we went inside the Forbidden City. 

This was the palace that the most of the emperors lived in. Really beautiful architecture, and it was interesting to see all the things that they put into the architecture to show status and the things they put in because of their superstitions. This was the presentation of another student in the group, but while he was presenting, and while we were visiting, the Chilean President visited the palace so they kicked out all the tourists so he could have a private tour. Most of the stuff that he was going to talk about was blocked off and we never got to see it. It was a bummer, but it defiantly made the experience more memorable.

Here's one of the guards. He and all his friends were pushing everyone out by holding ropes that blocked off the rest of the square and funneled everyone into the section that tourists were allowed to be in. We didn't get to see much, but we went into the Imperial Garden.

Instead of flowers like you would normally think goes in a garden, they had interestingly shaped rocks. It was really interesting. There were different paths and buildings inside of the rock formations that were really beautifully designed.

After we were done going through the Forbidden City, we went to this Buddhist Temple that was behind the city. The temple was partially on a mountain top (more like a big hill) and it had a lot of pagoda's on top of the hill that looked over the city. It was amazing.

After that we went to the train and left for Shanghai.

More China Travels

I haven't blogged since we left Xi'an (pronounced She'-in), so I'll see if I can remember what happened.

After we left Xi'an, we got on the bus to the railway station, and I realized that I'd left all of my food money (about 1500 kuai) in my room in the hotel that we had just checked out of. I felt so stupid, but I'm glad that I remembered because they were able to let me off with the assistant Bethany, to go back to the hotel and try and get my money. So we ran back and asked the ladies to let us in, having already given them our keys, and checked the room. Of course it was still where I left it, but I was truly panicked at this point. Also a rule that's a part of this program, if you ever are late to something and it causes you to miss your travel arrangements, first of all the group will leave without you, and if you don't make it to the place in time, you have to pay for the transportation costs. And sometimes if the assistant Bethany waited for you, or stayed behind for you, you have to pay for her too. So the reason for my panic, was not necessarily that I was afraid to lose the money, but rather, because I didn't want to have to pay for two train tickets to Beijing. We were lucky, not only did we catch the bus (much cheaper than a cab) we didn't miss the train, we got their really early. So everything turned out great!

We got on the train. They are a lot smaller than I imagined. I was on the top bunk of my compartment, which wasn't that awesome, because it was actually the smallest. We all talked and ate dinner (ramen noodles naturally), and then went to bed. When we woke up in the morning we were almost to Beijing, so we got ready, and departed the train when we got there. We took a bus to our hotel and checked in. My roomies and I decided to switch around, since in Xiamen we have 4 person bedrooms, Xi'an we had 2 person bedrooms, so we switched to the person that we hadn't roomed with in Xi'an. I roomed with Tracy and Lesly and Kayli roomed together. We had a lot of fun. After we lugged our stuff to our room we met downstairs to go to the Ming Tombs and the Great Wall.

We took a bus to the Ming Tombs, and it was really cold outside! After we got into the Ming Tombs everyone decided to buy these silly panda hats. I didn't get one, but I did buy a hat! It was cold enough to warrant a hat.

(the little guy in front is Ben, by the way. not a random Chinese...)

The Ming Tombs were pretty cool, especially since we had just finished our history class and therefore knew a lot more about the Ming Dynasty than your average tourist. So it was pretty interesting to see, but it was more of a garden than a tomb so we enjoyed it for the beauty.


When we were done, we took another bus ride to the Great Wall. The bus ride was neat too because we drove through a lot of mountainous areas and we could see the Great Wall in the distance. We got there, and started to walk. For those of you who don't like walking, climbing or strenuous activities, the Great Wall is not for you. After parking the bus, we walked up a long stretch of road (a hill, I say up for a reason) and then we get to the gate. After we got inside we could poke around the souvenir shops or just head straight up the wall. My group decides to go up the wall, so we started climbing the stairs.

I'll let the pictures talk.

It was amazing. So beautiful. So indescribable.

After that we drove back to our hotel.