Day 4 & 5 Beijing Tour

Day 4 Beijing tour
Just a quick reminder everything that is bolded and in italics was written by Eric!

This is the day we were waiting for. We get to go to the Great Wall. We traveled about 1.5 hours in a bus which was ridiculous, but it was worth it. We took a ski lift basically up to the wall. It was gorgeous. Such a pretty ride. We could touch the tops of the trees as we went up. The Wall is everything that it is cracked up to be and more.

It is seriously beautiful and huge. It is very impressive that they went to such work to create this. It took 150 years. Our tour guide Clement was this super funny Asian guy that explained it to us. Apparently they carried the stones up just a few at a time. Many men died while helping to build the wall and were buried under the wall because of this it is known as the longest grave. Yeah it is pretty pathetic that we take a ski lift to the top of the hill and then complain about the steep stairs when we are hiking a few hundred yards. It’s like we had a lot to complain about. I bet Ping Ling never complained once when he was packing a fifty pound brick up the steep slope that we looked down on from the ski lift chair.

The wall is quite the hike lots of ups and downs on uneven stones. A little oversight from the engineers who planned the great wall. I mean come on…seriously…when you are building a wall that is suppose to last for hundreds of years please remember to use a level so that future tourists don’t twist their ankles when they are trying to admire its beauty.   But the view is breath taking. The pictures will never do it justice. 

 This is a toboggan slide that you can take down from the wall instead of taking the ski left. I passed it up because I was feeling super sick and figured that wouldn't help matters. However, Eric went on it. He said that it was alright but it went too slow so it wasn't that much fun. He probably said it to make me feel better...

 This down here is a cute little lizard I spotted. It had a really sweet blue tail, but he was a bit camera shy.

 For anyone wanting updates on the whole pregnancy situation I will be posting info and a couple pics soon hopefully. But in this picture here I am 13 weeks about and if you look, unfortunately, you can see the beginning of my baby weight... or at least that is what I am telling myself that is!

After the Great Wall we ate as a group. At this point I was thrilled to be able to get some food down and didn’t even mind too much that it was Chinese. I am also happy I am starting to get better with chop sticks for a while there I thought I would starve. So when we have been eating with the group they sit us at a table with like ten people. They bring out a dish at a time and put it on a lazy susan. People pass around the dishes. It is hard to grab food from those dishes with chopsticks when the person at the other end of the table sees something that he likes and starts spinning the lazy susan for his desired dish. I feel like a baby that cannot crawl and is playing with a toy that he or she drops, tries to pick up, but is so clumsy that he or she ends up pushing it further away than the spot that he or she drops the toy. I sense a baby’s frustration… Plus like he said there is like ten of us to the table and then they bring out several dishes, but only one bowl of rice and one dish that is good. This leads to everyone still being hungry and you only get like one tiny bite of the yummy dish before everyone has scarfed it down and that’s if you are lucky.

Next we went to a jade factory. It is incredible how detailed they make all the pieces of artwork. The statues and everything else were very pretty. I was tempted to buy quite a few pieces but we were told it was spendy in the factory so I resisted. 

 This is in the jade factory. You can watch them cut and design the jade. It is really intricate work and very impressive.

Next we went to the Ming tombs. I thought that this would be super cool. The tombs have some cool buildings and things which was neat. Lots of statues of Buddhas and things which people leave money at and bow to. Where does the money to stuff like this actually go to? I know buddah doesn’t come back at night and take it. It most likely gets taken by the staff and they divide it up as waitresses in America would do when they earn tips. It’s also like wishing wells. Money goes in, but when it comes out where does it go?

Then we went over to the last building. Maybe it is just me but when I am told we are going to visit the tombs I expected to see like a mummy or a casket or something, but not so much. It’s basically a little hill that you can’t go close to that holds all the tombs under the ground. So I was a bit disappointed to say the least. 

 This building is basically a museum with info on the Ming dynasty.

 This guy had tons of money around him... We were just a little tempted.

 Supposedly if you walk through this gate when you come back through it you have to say something in Chinese or the ghosts can get you... Eric and I walked around the gate... just in case haha.

 Just a funny sign we found. The signs always have fun English translations.

This is a picture of  the name of one of the buried men. Apparently the more important men that our entombed have a statue with their names on it.

This was one of our busiest days and when it was time for the bus ride to the hotel I was excited. I thought I would get in a nice long nap. Boy was I mistaken. Clement started making jokes about how we could do karaoke on the way home and people actually took him seriously. Thus preceded one of the longest bus rides of my life. It was funny at first and some people were actually pretty good. But then there are those people that think they are good that really are just super annoying and of course they have to get up like a hundred times… I thought it would never end. I enjoyed it. People making a fool of themselves. I’m not a huge fan of American Idol. We used to watch it as a family when I was younger. One of the best parts was the beginning of a season where all these horrible singers get on and butcher great songs. I can do no better but the beauty of it is…I don’t claim to and I don’t try.

 This is the genius that came up with the idea to have karaoke.

 Yep... It really happened.

Day 5 Beijing tour

Today started out with a nice long language/ teaching training. I’m sorry to say it but when you are as tired as we are and on top of it both Eric and I have picked up some sorta cold training for four hours just plain sucks. All we wanted was to crawl into bed.

After the training we went to the Summer Palace. It is beautiful. It really is. It has passageways through  the stones in the hill that are really cool. At the bottom there is a nice big pretty brown lake. Haha. It really is brown but somehow still is pretty with neat little boats on it.

The group gave us 2 hours at the Summer Palace. Eric and I were done in less than an hour. I was determined to be done with the tour in less than an hour so that I could go back and get a long healthy nap. So we decided to be brave and try to find our way back to the hotel on our own. We basically just had to back track through the subway system, but it was pretty scary.

We were able to make it through without any hiccups. Once again we were both sick so we just went back to our hotel and Eric fell asleep and I watched a movie. Later we went out and found a pizza place which wasn’t horrible. Then we just returned for the night and went to bed.

Day 2&3 Beijing Tour

Day 2 Beijing tour

We started the morning with Chinese language training. The first couple hours we were excited to learn and were really taking it all in, but then it just went so far over our heads that we were waiting for it to end. This language is very difficult and so different that I just really hope I can survive without learning it at all haha.

After language training we ate lunch and then we got to go shopping. It was fun. They do a lot of bartering and Eric and I enjoyed haggling prices. We got some necessities like a hair dryer for me and some DVDs, but that was about it. After the shopping we didn’t have much else that day so Eric and I took off in search of food. At this point I still hadn’t gotten anything to stick in my stomach so we were really hoping for some food that I could keep down. We were able to find a KFC not far from our hotel. It wasn’t all that bad, it almost tasted normal. We were just happy to switch it up from all the Chinese food we had had.

After we ate we were thrilled to be able to go to bed at 8pm which is really about 5am our time at this point.

Day 3 Beijing tour

Today was Sunday so we were off to church. The majority of the group is LDS so we all attended a regular church meeting. We had to travel a while and got there super early so we were all just sitting around. But none of us had missed the Dairy Queen that was on the first floor of the building we were in. Eric and I headed that direction and found that our whole group pretty much was eating there. We got an oreo blizzard with the hope that it would be semi normal. With no high hopes though because they put rum in everything so we had to ask them to leave the rum out...they looked confused. As it turned out it was amazing! The best oreo blizzard ever mostly because by this point I was starving to death, but still it was great. We immediately got some ice cream cones to go with our blizzards and we were both on cloud 9.

Church was made up of a bunch of Americans that were in China for a variety of purposes. We stayed for sacrament and Sunday school. It was fun to be in an environment that we recognized and felt comfortable in.

Next we had a group lunch and then a break for a few hours. Eric and I love break time. We get to go cool off in our hotel room and just lay down for a bit.

Following the break we opted to go to the optional Kung Fu show because the acrobatic show was so neat. It was a pretty good drive away and we went in vans. By the way, traffic in China is like nothing you have ever experienced. It surmounts California, Hawaii, and Utah by about double. Cars have the right of way, then bicycles, then pedestrians, but everybody thinks they have the right of way no matter what. It is very scary. And the drivers are all crazy.

Anyways we made it to the show in one piece so we were pleased. This show told a story about a boy becoming a Kung Fu master. It was kind of interesting at first, but sorta got boring after a bit. Really boring and really hot! They kept playing the same annoying song over and over again and just doing the same Kung FU moves.

 These are just some pics we took before the Kung Fu show. There were rules against taking pics during the show.

We were happy when it finally ended and we were able to make the long trip back to the hotel.

Day 1 Beijing Tour

So my first impression of China lies somewhere between I hate it and I really just want to go home. For some reason the group we are with just doesn’t understand that we are tired. Also, it smells horrible like everywhere. It’s kinda nasty. And what is wrong with having soft beds and toilets that aren’t just holes in the ground? Ok, lets talk about the smell a bit more. When I was walking outside I turn to katy and ask what the smell is that I can’t stop smelling. The smell was everywhere. It was on the bus. It was at the airport. It was in the sky. Everywhere!!! Katy then tells me “Eric, that’s B.O.” B.O. as in “body odor.” It suddenly hit me: Chinese people don’t use deodorant. The smell from that point on was unmistakable. To add to this wonderful smell they don’t believe in any kind of sewage or plumbing systems that prevent smells from coming back up through the pipes. Ya you have all seen under your sinks how they have the little loops in the pipes. Those loops are very, very, very important to keeping the poop smell out of your hotel/apt/house/city. Very important.

Besides those general impressions the first day wasn’t too bad. We were able to go to Tienanmen square which is pretty neat and the Forbidden City.  The square is just an open square with like a cool statue but it was still cool to see.  So in  China they have squatty potties or like toilets that you squat over to go to the bathroom. Basically holes in the ground. Sometimes they have western style toilets. Well in the Forbidden City they have multiple locations to use the restroom, beit squatty potty or western toilet, so would somebody please explain to me why a mother is holding her 9 year old daughter over the garbage, in public, to do her business? There was a bathroom like 10 yards away! There are some things to figure out still in china…this would be one. Another thing that we discovered in the forbidden city is that Chinese people look at Americans like circus animals or celebrities. They stop what they are doing to stare at us. As they walk by they take pictures of us (some sneaky, others….not so much). Parents will often coerce their children to get their pictures taken with us. The children will shyly refuse but are so excited to do it. This is something that we actually kinda like, as long as it is not the creepy 40 year old men taking pictures of Katy. That’s just creepy. We don’t mind standing out a little bit. And we definitely don’t mind the cute little kids that love us just for being American.

The Forbidden City was huge. There were awesome buildings with very pretty architecture. The group split up and let us go at our own pace through it which was really nice. Eric and I walked through it enjoying ourselves for a while.

Then the heat really started to get to us. I mean it is hot and really humid. Plus between every building is this open square where the heat just pours down on you. Plus no one ever explained that the Forbidden City is so large. You walk forever and ever seeing pretty much the same thing. I mean it is super cool but when does it ever end?

Anyways, so we finally left the Forbidden City. On our long walk back to the hotel we stopped and ate our first real Chinese food. It wasn’t really that bad, just fried noodles, but I was really sick and wasn’t able to keep anything down so I wasn’t enjoying it.

When we got back to our hotel we asked the front desk if we could get our ac unit repaired. Within just a few minutes they had a repair man there to help us out. He spoke no English and by our interpretations we learned that the unit was not broken we just weren’t pushing the right buttons haha. Pretty sure the guy thought we were pretty stupid.  Yet we were thrilled to have air conditioning so we didn’t care.

We had dinner with the group. Some of the dishes were really good but others not so much. Its family style so we just kinda shared everything. I was still pretty sick so no food for me.

After dinner we all traveled together to the acrobatic show. At this point we were so tired we just weren’t really looking forward to the show. We just wanted the day to end. However, I am so glad we went. The show was amazing. It was crazy they did so many cool tricks. It was very impressive.

 These are shots of us at the subway. It is super crowded always! You are constantly touching people. Its just a little awkward.

 This was amazing he was high enough to almost touch the ceiling and he did awesome tricks!

 This guy hopped down these steps using just that one arm and then went back up them.

 There is like 12 women on 3 bikes in this picture.

All of those motorcyclist were in one of those round cages that they do tricks in at once! The pics didn't turn out though.

Even though the show was amazing, we were still grateful at the end to have finally made it to bedtime. Goodnight Beijing!

Ready or not… Welcome to China

Ok so I will be filling in details about how China is going so far. Anything that is in bold/italics is Eric adding his thoughts. Hope you enjoy!

I was living in a blissful world for a while there. At home visiting family and going on vacation…it was amazing. I really was enjoying myself, but the time just flew by much too quickly. All the sudden we were facing the reality that it was time to go to China. There was no more putting it out of my mind or pretending it wasn’t really going to happen.

On August 21^st we got up at 6:45 to drive to the Seattle airport, where we willingly boarded a 12 hour flight to South Korea. I will never again do so, so willingly. It was awful. The plane ride seemed like it was never going to end. I watched 5 movies and still had time to spare. And just so everyone knows if the flight is headed a direction the food comes from the place you are going not the place you have been. So we ate some random Korean foods with hope that we could keep down the next bite. Following our 12 hour plane we had about a 2 hour layover and then another 2 hours on a plane to Beijing. We got to the airport a little worse for wear looking forward to getting to the hotel and sinking into bed. Instead we got onto a bus for an hour and a half drive to the hotel.  When we stepped out of the airport before getting on the bus I couldn’t tell if it was a city or a giant stinking sauna.

Once we reached to hotel I could think of nothing better than a nice comfy bed and sleeping in. I mean we had been up for a whole 24hours without sleep and it was like 6am the next day our time. However China Horizons had different plans for us. It was only 10 pm China time. So they sent us to our rooms with instructions to meet in the lobby at 7:30am. The words cruel and unusual punishment were blaring in my mind. Finally we were dismissed to our rooms. Eric and I were in a room with two twin beds and luckily an air conditioning unit J, unfortunately that didn’t really work out because it would only turn on for a second and then it would shut off and dang was it HOT! Luckily exhaustion took over for me and I sank happily on to my rock hard bed and went to sleep.  Exhaustion didn’t take me so easily…I sat up for like half an hour fussing with the remote for the air unit. Finally, out of frustration, I shut off the lights and went to sleep.

As promised we woke up bright and early and went down to the lobby where we found no one waiting for us. We both started freaking out that the group had left us until we realized our watch was set to Korean time not Beijing time and we still had another hour to sleep! My fault. So we gladly rushed back to our room to post pone the inevitable first day.

Boredom

I'm going to be a little honest here. Throughout the nursing program all I wanted was for it to end. I wanted a break so bad. I was so excited when I graduated and knew that I had the next semester off. After school ended I spent about a month studying hard then I took the NCLEX and thankfully passed.
I was amazed that the time had finally come to take a much needed break. I read books I had been dying to read, I slept in, and basically I had the dream life. Since we are going to China I wasn't able to get a job so I basically have gotten to do whatever I wanted. It was awesome!.....Then it was kinda fun....... and currently it is sooooooooooooooooo boring! After about a month in a half of doing nothing much I have decided that it’s not all what it is chalked up to be. Sure I spent some time getting our apartment for when we come back and getting other arrangements worked out, but other than that I haven't done much, and I am getting tired of having nothing to do haha. Eric is busy with school and work though we try to do some fun things once his homework is done. I just don't think I can handle this much longer!
Thank goodness that this time is ending soon. In less than three weeks we will be heading home and on to all our upcoming adventures! I am so ready for the end of this semester and can't wait to be home with my family and on to bigger and better things :)

Furniture Adventures

One thing I've learned since I got married is that when I was younger and wanted so bad to grow up I didn't think about what all growing up would include. When Eric and I were engaged I was here in Idaho and he was in Provo and I didn't have a car. So when it came to apartment hunting I had to walk all around Rexburg by myself looking for a place to live. When I found the apartments that we now live in I thought "good enough"  and I signed that contract quick. They were furnished apartments and were pretty nice. I expected to live here about one semester and then pick a new place with Eric.
Now almost 2 years later we are finally looking at another place to live and we are only doing that because of the China trip.
So I have been searching and we have found our next apartment, problem is it is not furnished. We know that when we get back from China we will probably only have about 2 days before the semester starts to get settled in our new apartment. We have thought long and hard and have determined it would be best for us to buy furniture now. It is yard sale season after all. We really lucked out and found a nice mattress that is super comfy for cheap, then we found a couch that Eric fell in love with. Right after we told the lady we were going to buy the couch we found a free loveseat and futon.
So naturally we picked up all of the furniture. Our apartment is a tiny one bedroom apartment and our managers did not take out the furniture that is supplied with the apartment right away. We had two queen mattresses, a table, a futon, a loveseat, and not one but two couches crammed in to our tiny apartment! We could hardly move. I couldn't get into my dresser or open the oven door. It was terrible. I began to miss the time when the furniture was perfectly arranged by my mom in our big house and wonder why I ever wanted to grow up.
After a few days of living like this our apartment manager stopped by and moved out the supplied couch.We finally had enough wiggle room to get things in place. You wouldn't imagine all the spaces I found to hide everything we owned. I must say though the end result may just be worth it. 

 The futon mattress makes a comfy headboard :) The bed only feels a tiny bit claustrophobic.

All in all we have been happy with our purchases but I can't wait to get a bigger space to put them all in!