China

Well, I'm back from an absolutely amazing time in China! I kept a written journal of what we did every day while we were there, so that is what is post will be. I will make a post of only pictures and a video maybe tomorrow or the next day, but today will just be writing. It was an AMAZING experience and I will never forget it!!

Beijing, China - January 24th, 2009

Starting our day off in Korea and finishing it in China was stressful, busy and hectic, but also really fun and SO different from Korea. First, we woke up at 4:45 a.m. to the thickest snow fall I've seen yet in Korea. We met Jenny at the Songnae Station, and caught our bus to the airport. The airport consisted of a lot of stress and headaches, but we are now in China, so everything is fantastic!

We boarded our bus after arriving at the airport in Beijing with both bags in our hands and under our eyes! Soon we found ourselves at a North Korean style restaurant. It was called Pyong-yang something. It was North Korean food (which I thought was rather close to South Korean food), but Jenny said she noticed a difference. In the restaurant, there was a stage at one side. Shortly after dinner, 3 girls came out and sang traditional North Korean songs. I didn't really know until afterwards, but all of the staff and the 3 singers were all North Koreans!! We had a chance to meet 2 South Koreans in our tour group who lived in Australia for 10 years and they speak really really good English. They were telling us that the North Koreans who work at the restaurant work there for 5 years, and then they are required to go back to North Korea. After their shift every day they must go straight to quarantine, and they're not allowed to talk to anyone outside of their restaurant. Also, they don't make any money doing this, all the money (which is very little) goes back to North Korea to their parents. The 2 Korean guys (Brandon and Lynden) were saying they were scared to meet North Koreans, because it was their first time, and as of maybe even 5 years ago if the North Koreans were caught touching the South Koreans in the restaurant they would be killed by the North Korean government. We ended up talking a lot about North Korea, and they told us that when you go to visit North Korea (when the borders aren't sealed), you only go certain places and the people you see aren't even regular civilians, but paid actors who create the image of a stable country. Apparently the state of North Korea is so bad now that people are starving to death, and the situation is so desperate that they are eating the corpses of those who have died.

It was so mind blowing that this is happening in the world somewhere, that I still don't think I completely believe it. I can't put into words how I felt, (and still feel) about the situation in North Korea. It's just tragic. Anyway, I will continue to write about our day.

Anyway, these three North Korean girls came onto stage and began to sing a song called "Pangupsimnida" which means "Nice to meet you". What a cultural experience, I don't think I'll ever see something like that again.

After dinner, we went to a palace called The Temple of Heaven. It was very pretty. Just as ornate and detailed as those in Korea, but these ones certainly looked different. The palace was quite big, maybe as big as the Cheongdeokgung in Korea. After we visited the palace, we boarded our bus and ended up at a market / department store area. We caught a show with fake dragons that were dancing and jumping to music in celebration of the lunar new year.
I took some great pictures, but more importantly, that moment called for a video so I took 3 videos which I plan on stitching together into a nice edited video with sound and everything like text and effects.

After the market and dragon show, we went to an acrobat show. It was AMAZING! I had never seen anything like it! They were doing everything from plate spinning, to riding a bike around with 10 people stacked on it, to laying down and spinning a table around on only their feet! I got lots of pictures of that, so that is good. I also got a D.V.D. for 40 Chinese Yuan (roughly $8 Canadian). That show was something else! Following that show, we had dinner at a restaurant which was Chinese. Chinese food is very different in China than Chinese food is in Canada! There are no chicken balls, or shrimp that has been breaded and deep fried! Instead, there is fish, duck, rice, breaded & deep fried radishes and more that I unfortunately forget now.
Finally, after dinner, we got to go to our hotel. It is the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in! It is very beautiful - landscaping, the outside, and the interior decorations make me feel like a King living in a palace. It is very nice.

Tomorrow we are going to the Great Wall of China, which should be amazing. I was going to start to talk about the economic extremes here, but I won't bore you with that until the end of the trip's blog.

Sheay-sheay (thank you).

Day 2

Today I crossed off one item on my life's "to do list" - I climbed the Great Wall of China. As we approached the site that we visited, I thought to myself - "This is the most beautiful scenery, the curviest roads, and the most exotic adventure I've ever taken! The closer we got, the more beautiful the scenery became! The curvier the roads turned! It was all very exciting. We finally got to the Great Wall after we visited a Chinese herbal medicine museum. The museum consisted of a short history of Chinese Traditional Medicine and a lady who pressed my hand, asked to see my tongue, and proceeded to tell me that I often have an upset stomach, but not to worry because it is not serious.

Anyway, we arrived at the Great Wall of China and soon we were on a gondola type lift thing going up the mountain. The scenery may have been the most beautiful experience.  Hundreds of mountains scraping the sky that - when you admired their cloud-topped summits - glimpses of the 5000km Wall would reveal themselves.

We began to explore the Wall by climbing a bunch of uneven stone steps that were so steep, I found myself clutching the ice-cold railing for support. The wind and temperature reminded me very much of North Bay in the coldest of the winter season. The wind chill was probably around -25C or so. Anyway, the short story is that it was an experience of a life time that I will NEVER forget. It was surreal.

Shortly after the Great Wall (where I bought a book about the construction and geography of the wall), we travelled a short distance to a fantastic lunch - the best I've had yet in China! There, we shopped at a really nice store that had glass ornaments in all sorts of shapes and sizes. I bought 2 things - humming birds that are on nice golden leaves, and have really nice colours. They are for my Mom and Grandma.

After that, we went to get massages which was really relaxing, especially on the day we decided to climb the Great Wall of China! I'm telling you - they don't use the word "Great" loosely. The thing was huge.

After the massages, we found a Chinese McDonalds which was great! I took tons of pictures that I can't wait to show to Steph!

We finished off the day with a visit to an aquarium which had sharks, alligators, plattipus, and tons of other fish - many of which we saw while walking through an underwater tunnel!
The dinner was alright, but not as good as the lunch we had, so it didn't really compare. Now we are sitting in the hotel room visiting, with the sound of fireworks in the background, as they have been going off all day since around 2 in the afternoon! (The fireworks were going from then until we left on Tuesday!!! All day every day!!!)

Tomorrow is the "new year" night, as well as our visits to the Forbidden City and Tienanmen Square.

Until tomorrow...

Day 3

Today was just as eventful as the last two days have been. We started off the day with a visit to another McDonalds! It was great! We also had a trip to a Haagen Das restaurant which was wonderful! After that, we went to a really cool restaurant that had a mix of Chinese and South-east Asian food. (The McDonalds wasn't part of the tour group in case you're wondering why we ate twice in a row). Anyway, it was a good meal, and restaurant was decorated like we were in a jungle! They also had a show with dinner which was pretty cool. I took lots of pictures and videos, so that is exciting. After lunch, we went to another item of my life's "To do list" - Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was really amazing, but there were so many people!!! The roofs in the Forbidden City are all sparkling gold - mute testimony to the wealth of the royals that lived within the surrounding walls.  Walking from the south to the north, each building becomes more and more spectacular, each out-doing the last in beauty. The place was HUGE - I think around 9000 people lived there when it was being used. I bought a book about the place, so that's good.

After the Forbidden City, we went on a trip on a rickshaw type thing, but driven by a bicycle. We went behind the walls that face the street and have neighbourhoods behind them. It was a really interesting experience. The neighbourhood we went through reminded me of the Casbah in Morocco, but without the pushy sales people. It was great to see actual locals in an authentic setting, away from the touristy things of the city.

After that, we went to a random Latex pillow store that I was not at all into. We got some funny pictures though.

Then we went for dinner which was almost the same as yesterday's so I won't talk about it here. After dinner we went to a show called A Night of Beijing which was amazing!! It gave a history of China through dance, music and drama. The dancing was really cool, but the music was really cool too. I took lots of illegal videos which should turn out great. Anyway, as I said before, we met those 2 Korean guys, so they're coming over tonight for some soju drinkage as it's our last night in Beijing.

Tomorrow we are leaving at 9 to go to the airport to head back to Korea. It has been an amazing trip - one that I will never forget!!!!!

I miss you, Beijing!!!!!

K bye.

Now that I'm in Korea again and I'm thinking of more things, I will say one more thing about the economic extremes in China. You will see a luxury apartment building with a shanty town right next to it. It's all about polarity there, especially when it comes to the rich and poor. As you drive up and down the main streets, there would be solid walls that were about 10 feet high, with doors every now and then leading to behind the wall. Behind the walls, there were twisty narrow pathways with really poor housing conditions. They had a common washroom for every 20 houses or so.

The night of new years we were sitting in our hotel room and all of a sudden it sounded like there was a HUGE explosion outside. We looked around, and saw the clock was at midnight. The fireworks we saw were incredible! They were EVERYWHERE. We went outside in a hurry to see as much as we could, and the sky was just as bright as day because of all of the fireworks. Everywhere you looked there were fireworks going off. In parking lots, back yards, next to cars... everywhere. It was so loud everywhere that car alarms were going off. It felt like everyone in Beijing must have stopped and looked at the sky at that time. It was really really cool.

That's my journal from the trip. One funny thing - the English translations on some things were hilarious like the card we got in our hotel room when we arrived that said "Go, do not forget to family at a safe".

Alright, until the post comes with pictures and videos, I hope that was a good update about what I did in China!

Buh bye