Don’t ever listen to Adele when you
are feeling sad. I don’t know what it is that gave that woman the power to
perfectly encapsulate all human emotions into a three minute song, but damn.
She does it. I’m not particularly distraught or anything, but have been feeling
a little down on certain days here in China. Maddy, my best friend I came to China
with, and I often joke about the bad luck that I always seem to have. It’s just
little things, but when they keep happening it starts to become funny. For
example, I will be sitting on my bed about to open up a snack but will open it
with too much force so it goes flying behind the headboard. Or when opening a
Crystal Lite package to put in my water I drop it into the bottle without being
able to reach it and have to pour it all out. Or when my favorite pants ripped as I sat down. I bought a Chinese SIM card so my phone will work, but
my phone wouldn’t me log into my Apple account so it is basically useless. It
magically worked for a week to only be logged out again. Due to the fact that
all internet sites are blocked in China my phone has become the perfect
torturing device. I still get notifications from Facebook and Instagram, but am
unable to look at them. I am also able to text my roommate here in China (who
has a Chinese SIM card that works like a dream). Anyways, I’m just still trying to look at it
with some humor.
Maddy
and I are a lot alike, but this last week she uncovered what it is that makes
us different. She is a very logical person and always thinks with her head. She
jokes saying she doesn’t have a soul because of this, but we all know that’s
not true. So while she only thinks with her head I always seem to think with my
heart. She has no heart, I have no brain and we make the perfect
match. Haha. I have the tendency to be irrational and put everything that goes
wrong on myself. I’ve somehow been convinced that it’s easier to say it was me
that did wrong than admit that someone I care about would choose to hurt me. I
won’t admit it often (ever), but am sensitive and often feel things too deeply.
This can be both a blessing and a curse. I don’t get attached to too many
people, but when I do it can be hard for me to let go. So while I’m here one of
my goals is to “grow a brain.” To let people go when they want to go and to not
be so hard on myself when something doesn’t go as planned.
We have now had two of our vacation
breaks while doing our time in Weihai. Our first was to Shanghai and our second
to Beijing. I’ll back track and some point to talk about our Shanghai
adventures, but am going to start with our latest to Beijing.
We took the sleeper train from
Weihai to Beijing and left around 9 pm. We were put on a triple decker sleeper.
We were all on the top bunks and were so high up that we weren't able to sit up
straight. While waiting to get on the train we made friends with a girl that
goes to the University here. She spoke English fairly well too. I asked her if
she had an English name and she didn’t. So I named her, Casey! I figured I
should take advantage so she doesn’t end up with a name like “Applesauce.” It’s
still funny to me that anyone can randomly give them an English name and they
love it.The train ride was 15 hours, but not too bad since it was overnight and
mostly slept. We got there and figured out the metro to get to our hostel. We
checked in and then wandered around downtown for awhile. The food in Beijing is
so good. There was a lot of really good Asian food but THEY HAD WESTERN FOOD.
We were all ecstatic. We all had burgers and pancakes and salads and couldn't
be happier. Drastic change from what we are used to eating here in Weihai.
We went to the Summer Palace the
next day and it was SO crowded. Beautiful, but crowded. It was literally like
Disneyland. We didn't get as much attention for being white in Beijing as we do
everywhere else. I think they are more accustomed to seeing us around. However,
we still caught people taking our picture. Trinity, a girl we have been
traveling with, and I decided we were just going to photo bomb everyone we saw
taking pictures. It's really fun and hilarious because we run up and hop into their pictures and they
say "thank you” like we are doing them a favor. After that we jumped on
the metro and went to the Pearl Market. AMAZING. So many good finds for so
cheap.
The next whole day was spent at the
Great Wall. We were lucky enough to run into another teacher that teaches in
Weihai on our sleeper train. He is Australian and owns a school here. He was
telling us how he had four extra spots for his venture out to the great wall
and invited us to go with him. This brought me a lot of relief because I didn't
know how we were going to navigate getting there. The spot closest to Beijing
is said to be crawling with people and I didn’t want to go to that section. So
we got lucky and went with them on Monday to the Mutianyu Section of the wall.
I swear, when people ask me what I did while in China when I get home my
response will be, "I climbed stairs." From the 200+ stairs on campus
and living on the fifth floor to climbing a mountain of stairs to the Great
Wall, my butt does not lie. There is an app on the Iphone that tells you how
many floors you climb every day. My average is 38 floors a day. We hiked around
the Great Wall for about five hours and it was AMAZING. Pictures just can't do
it justice. I just couldn't believe I was actually there the whole time. We even saw a bride getting her pictures taken up there. Once
we were done climbing and wandering (it was quite the hike on the wall) there
was an alpine slide you could take back down to the bottom. SO FUN. How many
people can say they have tobogganed down from The Great Wall of China!? We
waited at the top for awhile to wait for all the Asians to go down at a
painfully slow rate. For those that don’t know, the people here are not fans of
speed. We were able to cruise down pretty fast and I loved it.
The next day we were on the bullet
train back to Weihai leaving at around 3:30. That ride was about 7 hours. So we
woke up and stuffed our faces with more western food, wandered around downtown
Beijing a little more and headed to the train station. We are planning on going
back to Beijing at the end of June to camp on the Great Wall and to go to The
Forbidden City. Since we were planning another trip back we didn't feel to
rushed trying to get all the sites in. It was perfect. Had the best time and
bought a lot of fun souvenirs while there. However, I still think my favorite
souvenir I’ll be bringing back is my butt.
“What’s comin is
comin and we’ll meet it when it does.” -Hagrid
"In her natural habitat."
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