Hi all!
As promised I'm writing again with an update on China=)
First of all, let me say that overall, this has been the best trip I've ever taken overseas. Now, I don't know if it's that I love China, or that I'm so honored to be here to speak on American Weddings, but, I have an incling it's a little bit of both, but mostly the company I'm keeping in Karen, Denise, Robert, and Matt. We are truly "The China Gang" as Ann likes to call us. And we are super happy exploring this amazing landscape together.
This morning started out with a math problem. John, our host, as you'll remember from yesterday's blog, called us up and asked to come to our room and figure out the monetary exchanges necessary for our trip. Since math and I don't get along, and math and I and mornings is a double-whammy, I let Matt deal with it. Matt as usual, is a gracious, patient soul, and worked everything out as complicated as it was, and did't complain a bit (we are so greatful for him!). John rented a van for us to site see in, and we planned on leaving at 8:30AM to site see, but after our long math problem we realized that Matt, Karen and I still needed breakfast, so Karen and I took a refreshing morning jog to McDonalds=) Karen found out that McDonalds here only has pineapple pies, instead of apple pies, and she was brave and tried one, much to her surprise it was a yummy treat. (ask Karen about her food the rest of the day, which included more pineapple goodies! Pineapple pizza for lunch, and dinner (oops on us), and pineapple rice at lunch too. Hehe.)
Once we got our McDonalds and hopped in the van we were off to see the Great Wall of China! It was about an hour long drive, but we entertained ourselves by thinking up nicknames for each of us, some of us already had our nick names. Now, for the record, the names I'll reveal in this portion of the blog are not our truely hillarious and inappropriate nicknames, but rather our "clean" nicknames. (you can tell we are a silly bunch, at least we think so!) So, Matt, with his dark hair and piercing blue eyes was fondly called "Superman" by several of our Chinese friends, and so the name began. Me, "Handler", which is explained by my organizing the trip with our Chinese counterparts before and during, which has been my pleasure=) Denise is "Heini" lovingly named after, you guessed it, beer! Yummy! Robert is "Buttercup", how cute ! Karen is "Sqwatter" (don't ask! or maybe do and learn something interesting!) and John, our beloved host has been donned "Go Go!", which is what he yelled out to us over and over during the past two days while running at least 12 feet ahead of us at all times!
Once we arrived at the Great Wall we were so excited to see it! Matt and I had recently watched an entire TLC program on the wall and felt very connected to it. We got our tickets, and proceeded to climb the wall with many other admierers. The wall was massive, and it stretched for hundreds of miles. We climbed up, and Karen and I counted the steps the whole way, comming close to counting 360 steps (but we didn't count them all from the beginning and guess there was more like 500 that we climbed that day, and that was only to one or two of the hundreds of towers the wall holds. In each of the towers and along the bridge paths were vendors with wares such as paintings of the wall and Chinese characters, stone sketchers, toys, mini replicas of the wall, hats, scarves, t shirts for the olympic games coming soon, little magnetic toys, and so much more. Half way up to the tallest tower of our climb that day poor Denise caught a wiff of her asthma so her and Robert waited below and let us complete our climb. On the way up I pointed out a cute little Chinese baby girl toddler, she was wearing what seemed to be a full snow jump suit! Her parents were friendly people, and very trusting too! They picked her up, plopped her in my arms and had me take a picture with her=) So cute!
By the time we made it back down the Great Wall we were all cold and needed to defrost, and we were jonesing for some Starbucks. Well! There was a Starbucks! Right at the bottom of the wall, how convenient! Thanks corporate America! (so happy for Mc Donalds and KFC and Subway too!) We ordered our drinks, compliments of Robert (thanks man!) and met some Americans from IL while there too. In fact, it seemed like every American on tour was there defrosting their bodies before going back out into the cold, windy, plung of touring.
Back into the van we went, and off to our next stop, the Palace Museum (which includes Tia'anmen Square and The Forbidden City). It was AMAZING to see where the Emperor and Empress and the Emporor's court and Concubines lived and ruled! Where armies were trained, political ceremonies took place, weddings were held, etc...My favorite part was seeing the building where they held the royal weddings of Emporers to Empresses. We got to see a wedding gown and Emperor's attire, as well as their crowns and hair pieces. So cool! There were also artifacts of Chinese tea ceremonies, and their ancient beginnings.
Next we walked over to see Tia'anmen Square, which was just across the street. Matt really wanted to see it since he remembered the famous (and not mentioned much in China) photo of one Chinese civilian standing out in front of three large tanks (also reference a Simpson's episode).
After all of our touring around with John (Go Go!), we decided to head home to the hotel to rest.
Once we got back to the hotel we all decided to freshen up and rest in our rooms before scouting out dinner.
We all met in the lobby to go to dinner, setting out to find some good food, not really knowing exactly what we wanted. Thank goodness that Karen has a wonderful eye for things! She spotted a sign "Pasta and Pizza". We went up to the restaurant, ordered two large pizzas and some beer (perfecto!).
After eating we went to Baskin Robbins on the way back to the hotel. Denise had a craving for some yummy ice cream, and we all begrudgingly went along (yeh right, you don't have to ask us twice!)
Then we went back to the hotel. When Matt and I returned to our room we had a small message from the hotel front desk that Luling, our translator, and new found friend, wanted us to call and sort out tomorrow's site seeing with her. We decided on seeing the Summer Palace tomorrow, as well as seeing the pearl market, silk market, and shopping in general. She promises to bring us somewhere that has traditional staple foods, especially really good Peking Duck! For dinner she is thinking we'll try out hot pot food, which is another traditional treat.
So, now I'm going to load as many photos as I can on this thing for you to see, and then hit the "Flinstone" bed.
Love and hugs,
Nicole ("The Handler") and The China Gang
