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^^

Work in Progress

OBVIOUSLY its still really rough~but get ready for new blog: Erin without borders

RE~DO

Since I am no longer in Seoul~EPs heart in seoul is going to get switched around~~new name/url to come. ^^v

Big Trouble in Little China~Beijing

My final stop on my worldwind~2 week tour of china was beijing. After maybe the most ridiculous airplane ride of my life (No seriously~I assumed I was being filmed) I landed and quite easily made it into center Beijing. The first thing I noticed about this city is they are not screwing around with public transpo. It is amazing. Fast, reliable and extremly efficient, the rest of the world should visit and take note. Since I got to beijing latish, I just kind of lazed around in the hostel, and this was a fairly good hostel to do it.

Bad picture of a lame place.


The next day I rented a bike to cruise around the city. Since there are lanes specifically for bikes, cruising was a non issue, even though you have to go through security to go through Tiennamen square and i got yelled at (Shocker......) it was still kind of cool. I ended up going to the Forbidden city, which should be renamed to the overhyped city. People kept telling me it'd take all day, yadda yadda. I made it my mission and marched through this place. Its essentially a huge palace, which is awesome at first until you realize its building after building of the same type of thing. i did think the audio-tour was awesome. Automated GPS maps? WOAH.




Bored of the circus that was the Forbidden City I biked down not too far away to the temple of heaven. This was spectacular. IT was a huge, quiet park that you could just walk around. Although the Temple of Heaven its self was not as big or obnoxious as the Forbidden City, I thought it was pretty in its simplicity. Lots of colors, very neat. I liked it.



Great Wall


The next day was a heavy hitter. The hostel I was staying in, (Leo) offered a tour that I just decided to take. We drove a few hours north of Beijing proper, past the touisty wall up to a random piece. Little known fact: The wall is HUGE. Like, could wrap around the earth twice huge, so theres heaps of places where you can hike it that doesn't have cable cars and loads of fat tourists. We were able to hike 7 guard towers~or about 3 to 5 km....UPHILL. The wall literally was on top of the mountain range, and followed it up and down. It was a rough climb, but worth it to say you did. Overall it was a fun day with people from the hostel, and one i won't soon be forgetting.

The following day I walked forever. Quite literally. I tried to walk up to a park since I read that you could get a view of the Forbidden City, and I thought that'd be cool. Since Beijing may be the most polluted city in the world it as like looking out on a foggy day. The visibility was nothing and it was all in all a waste of time. THe park was so busy with tour groups and other annoying tourists who thought they owned to place, so I kept walking.
See? Gross

Llama Temple


I made it to an awesome street whos name now escapes me, but the shopping her was cool, and it was just a really nice street. It was kind of reminiscent of something in Europe. After picking up a few things as gifts and walked to the Llama temple, which was a really huge Buddist temple, the largest in Beijing. Tired of temples yet? ONce again, it was expansiive and very beautiful, and had a buddah that was carved out of a tree, which was cool. But since this is Beijing, there was approximatly 1432463 people there, it got old so after admiring it, I rolled out, and kept walking.

Water Cube!

I ended up seeing something I was really excited for~olympic park. I remember how awesome it was to watch the 2008 olympics, and how important the Birds nest and Water cube were, so seeing them was awesome. After they were lit up, they were spectacular, and although I didn't get to go in them, it was spectacular. I really liked just being there. I ate some funky food, but not the chickens with their heads still on them. on sticks. It was cool to see though.

My last day I was lazy. I really just lounged around, and then walked to the infamous night market. You think market, and street foods and acky souveniers comes to mind, but remember, We're in China bitch. Weird Street food was an inderstatement, unless you're used to eating such things as live scorpions and seahorss. Seeing as most things get me sick, I didn't try it, and don't regret it.

Star fish anybody?


There was a lot I liked about Beijing (and China in general) and a lot I disliked. I'm anxious to get back and see Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tiger Leaping, and Tibet; but China is no place I could ever live. My friend summed it up pretty well; China has everything the 1st world has, and some of it is even better, but they still have a 3rd world mentality, which is weird.Quite seriously, it was hard to believe that this is one of the most developed countries in the world. i think the theings that made it quirky and funny would drive me bonkers if I was there for more than a onth at a time. Overall though, China was a top notch, premium experience, and you should try to go.

Patience, faith, and TsingTao,
ErinJ

Big Trouble in little china~Chengdu

After Xi'an I flew down to Chengdu (due to time constraints, there was a lot of flying~next time I'll take the train). After finding the hostel, no problem thanks to a smack in the head from a bus driver, I met up with a few people I met in Xi'an. They took the train, and had a snaffoo that an extremely kind couple was willing to help them out with, which was lucky for us. They, being Chinese, were able to get us all to a really awesome hot pot restaurant and order for us. The food in Sichuan is spicy (foods from different provinces in China are all different) but delightfully so. Here, they boil a type of soup at your table, where you boil your meat or vegetables (Think SHabu-Shabu style) in the broth, and then dip them into a peanut sauce. You never actually drink the soup, its just a broth the cook the vegetables in. This was my favorite meal in China, it was so flavorful and delicious! It was also nice chatting with people, and talking to Chinese people about traveling their country. That night was Halloween, which goes without explanation. Yummmm

The next day I woke up early to go to the Panda Sanctuary~China's largest. We went early because apparently pandas only like being awake for 15 minutes a day so we had to make sure we were there for it. Nothing was really labeled so it was just a zoo with red pandas and regular pandas, including the cutest baby pandas ever, until you got to the movie that explained how pandas reproduce and it is ridiculous. They need help, can't do it themselves because they don't want to. Then the baby is born and they slap at it. They deserve to be extinct. After that we went through the creepiest museum ever which was just a bunch of stuffed animals in behind glass. Since this was a tour through a hostel I hung out with a lot of people and made a few friends, which would prove to be useful the following day.

Cute Panda Bearsss

After the bear sanctuary we walked around the city, seeing as Chengdu isn't a place you spend a lot of time in, so we tried to get everything done, which proved to be easy. We saw the largest Mao statue in China, and another Temple, the Wenshu Temple. THis one was also nice and quiet, a cool retreat from a bustling city (Chengdu is china's 5th largest). It was also a huge complex which was nice to walk around.
The garden in Wenshu


After walking around, it was dinner time, where we thankfully ran into some more people from the hostel who spoke Chinese. We went to a restaurant where we (and by we, I mean they) asked for recommendations and we ate a variety of foods, including Peking duck and beef stomach, but they were all delicious, although some were extremely spicy.

The next day was one I was really looking forward to. Angel, a Chilean boy I met in a hostel and I decided to go to Leshan, which is known for being home of the world's largest Buddha. We went down to the bus station, which was a cluster fuck, to get into a van with some Chinese people until to van stopped on the side of the street 10km from where we wanted to be. Some chinese guy started yelling at us to get into a cab, and against our better judgement we jumped in, as we had no other way to get where we wanted to be. A 15minute taxi ride and we were at the entrance to the park. We walked around, admiring the Buddha's before climbing a mountain to get to what we were there for. After turning a corner you see a head.


Not just any head, but a head 10 times the size of you, which is just ridiculous to see. You slowly climb down a set of stairs that wrap down the cliff that the Buddah is built into until you get to the bottom and can do nothing else but look up and wonder how people hundreds of years ago were able to do it.
Theres me just as a frame of reference

That night was my last night with friends, so we made it count, which is something I would pay for greatly on my flight to beijing the next day.

Chengdu:a city worth visiting, but no place I'd like to go back to. That being said, I met a lot of people and did have a great time. I stayed in an interesting, although at the end of the day a decent hostel. Recommended: The Mix Hostel, Chendu. Althought the bathroom situation was a little sketchy at best, all in all a fun place to be.

Patience, Faith, and lots of chile peppers,
ErinJ and co.

Big trouble in Little China~Xi'an

So October 23rd, my Friend Fiona, her friend Kym and I all met at the airport. Let the games begin! We were on our way to Xi'an, China, best known for terracotta warriors and being the capital of old china and the end of the silk road. We got there around 8pm, and settled into a great hostel. We ate dinner and called it a night.
Playing in the bell tower!

The next day was raining, and since all the stuff we wanted to do required Mr. Golden Sun, we walked around Xi'an. The city has a center point, which is their Bell tower, and a drum tower. Both are fairly large, and seeing as this was my first Chinese experience I was pretty stoked on it. We listened to some old school (Tang dynasty) bell music and ran around both towers, which we cool, but I couldn't tell you anything about them as everything was in Chinese. After that, we decided to check out the Muslim quarter, a street of shopping and food for lunch. we ate some delicious although greasy street food, and walked around some more, and generally hung out.

The pagoda


The next day we continued being busy by gong to the Temple of 8 immortals. There was something important about this place, but I can't remember what it was, and wasn't overly impressed by it. We walked to the city wall and took a walk around it for a while, but seeing as it encompasses the entire city wall, and seeing as it was -432 degrees outside, we quickly gave up in search for hot chocolate. After dinner that night we ended up going to the Big Goose Pagoda for the light and water show which was actually really cool with the Pagoda lit up behind it.

Jing Di's lil' army

The next day we woke up early to go to the tomb of JingDi~which is another old famous Chinese emperor. We was buried with all of his stuff, in addition to a small army. The army itself was large in number but small in stature. Hope he didn't see anything big in the afterlife. This was actually a really cool place, and they're working on it. It was a large compound underground. Some parts had glass plating on it so you could walk over it.
After this we went to the folk village to see how Xi'anites lived long ago. They were probably cold.
That night was Kym's birthday, so we celebrated in style and class...sort of. It was fun.
Doorways in the folk village

The next day was less exciting. We went to a museum, and decided we were tired so went back, took a nap, ate a little, and watched movies in the hostel. I do like relaxing days ^.^b

Warriors!

Thursday was the big one. This day we went to see the Terracotta warriors! We made friends with a bunch of people in the hostel and the group of us set off together. After an hour+ on a bus, we were dropped off in a lot, ate some breakfast and moved on. We got in, and hiked up to the actual warriors site. We watched a movie circa 1972 about what the warriors are (For those that don't know~watch more history channel! There is an entire clay army underground in China, its wild.) We heard from somebody in the hostel to do the pits in reverse order, so we started with pit 2. Which was nothing. LAME. We went to pit 3, where there were 4 horses and headless warriors. LAME. Then we went to pit 1, which is housed in an aircraft carrier. You walk in, and once you get through the crowds you see hundreds of warriors all lined up. Its actually really cool to see at first. The coolest thing is that they are all different, so they were modeled after that real army at the time. Really neat. We walked throughout this complex, which is huge, before starting the adventure back home.
With a warrior

Misty Mountain tops

Friday we went out EARLY with Anna and new Norwegian friends, to run around and try and find a bus at 7am to Hua Shan; one of china's 5 sacred mountains. We got there, and immediately started the ascent since we were on a time limit to catch the bus. It was quite the climb. We climbed stairs and hills all day. We climbed up 90 degree slopes and stairs. We met a Chinese guy about half way up the north peak and continued up with him, making jokes about how the Norwegians were already at the top. It was a hard climb, maybe the hardest I've ever done! After we got to the north peak, we decided to continue another 2+ hours up to the west peak. I've never quit anything really in my life, but I was sure thinking of it. It was brutal, and we were hungry and tired. I made it to the top a few minutes behind my friends, and then we had to sprint back down the mountain to make the last bus, which we did, and eat more delicious street food than necessary. Mmmmm meat on a stick.

Hikers and Ivan, our Chinese friend

Mosque


Saturday was our last day together, as we all went separate ways Sunday. Fiona and Kym went to see the Pandas, but since I was going to do that in Chengdu, I opted out for a stroll around the city. i went with Dexter and Anna to the great mosque, which was a nice, peaceful place in the city. There is a really large Muslim population in XI'an, as seen in their food and beliefs. The mosque was a really relaxing place, and a lot larger than I expected. After that we walked to DAIRY QUEEN. Exciting! We then spent the last night on the roof, drinking, eating, talking and general merriment before going to see a Tang Dynasty show. I thought this was hokey, but it was kind of neat to see how they danced a long time ago. We ate more street food for dinner, after making friends with a tour guide. all in all it was a nice night, and a great week.

I really like hanging out in Xi'an, and it was a good way to ease into China. All in all it was a great week.
Next: EP in Chengdu, and Beijing!
Patience and Faith,
ErinJ


Friends

Ep without Borders

Heyyyy team.
I just got back stateside! ^.^ Look for a re-done blog soon, complete with EP in CHINAAAA