The Little Engine(er) That Could/It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere..

I never got the chance to post the last few entries for my blog, so here they are. Sorry for the delay! Our last weekend was wonderful, just fun stuff, and a good way to unwind after the busy week and a half we'd had thus far.

Saturday, May 17th

This morning we cancelled class to take a trip to Fragrant Hill. Inaptly named, Fragrant Hill is, in fact, a MOUNTAIN. We were dropped off at the bottom of the “hill” and had to walk up a decent portion of it before we got to the entrance to the actual hill, passing all these shops that were, of course, catering to the tourists. Once we got to the entrance, a group of the girls split off with Prof. Gao to begin our hike. The first half of the hike wasn’t too bad; it was mostly ramped walkways. The stones were uneven and slippery because it was misting, but not terrible. We were excited because we were GOING to make it all the way to the top! Once we hit the second half of the trail, though, we started to reconsider – it was entirely steps, and not nice steps. Steps like the Great Wall, that were varying height and depth, and not easy to walk up all at once. There were very few breaks, and it was EALLY tiring. Such a good calf workout. About halfway up the steps, Prof. Gao decided to turn around and go back, but the rest of us kept going. Finally, after what seemed like six million steps (it was actually 1168 – there was a marking on the top stair), we got to the top!! The view was amazing; we could vaguely make out a few towns and other mountains, although it was really foggy (of course), but the coolest part was the mountain that was attached to Fragrant Hill. There were temples and paths all over it, and you could see everything since it was so close. It was definitely worth the hike. The cable car wasn’t working, so we had to hike the entire way back down, too, which made my calves sore for about two days afterwards, with stepping down sideways for over 1100 steps! At the bottom, we found out that the boys, Jenna, and Laura didn’t even make it to the top. They got roughly halfway up and quit to go shopping for swords. I think we won that one.

 

After lunch back at the University, some of us piled into taxis and went to the Beijing Zoo! It was weird seeing animals in the zoo that just walk around the States. They had raccoons (“raccoon dogs”), porcupines, wolves, etc. They also had the more exotic (at least to me) animals there, too, like lions, leopards, white tigers, and panda bears!! The pandas (“xhong mao” in Chinese) were so cute. I asked Viven if she could send me a panda once I get back to the States, and she agreed. Excellent. :) After the zoo, Rachel showed us a place to get bubble tea, which was really nice after the hot muggy day.

 

Later that evening, we went to Old Beijing. The oldest part of the city, it has all these crazy streets, shops, and bars, and rickshaws! A bunch of us took a rickshaw tour of the area, which was really cool. The drivers took us through the houses and alleys and we got to see where they were restoring bits of the history of Beijing. The best part was Opium Street, the oldest street in Beijing at over 800 years old! It’s called Opium Street because it’s shaped like the stem of an opium pipe, meaning it twists and turns all over the place! The shops along Opium Street were the coolest ones I’ve seen, and we had a really good time exploring them. We also played Chinese hackysack with a bunch of people around the little square, and most of us ended up buying one. I can’t wait to show my little brother! 

Sunday, May 18th

Today was our free day of the trip. We were given the whole day to shop, sightsee, explore, whatever we wanted! Since it was Kayla’s birthday today, a big group of us did birthday things all day! First we went out to a huge brunch at our favorite restaurant, Lush. They have absolutely the best French toast I’ve ever tasted that’s not homemade, and the pancakes were phenomenal as well. Alex and Josh and I all got the same meal, and I finished mine first, so I made the boys man up and finish theirs. After brunch, the girls went to get massages while the boys went back to campus and played basketball. It was weird, because I’ve never gotten a professional massage before, but it was nice after hiking all morning the day before. We then went to the Silk Market, where they have all sorts of counterfeit merchandise. Jenna, Laura, and I found that speaking Spanish to the shopladies helped because they know enough English to help their trade, but they know absolutely no Spanish, so if you rambled off any random phrase, they’d just look at you like you were nuts and leave you alone. It worked pretty well until we got to one of the stalls, where the lady was so persistant, she followed Jenna into the bathroom! Crazy, but we eventually bargained enough with them so get the prices we wanted, although we had to speak in nothing but Spanish for 45 minutes, and I quit taking Spanish in eleventh grade. It was rough.

 

For dinner, we all went out to Old Beijing again and found this really nice restaurant where we could eat outside next to the lake. Josh ordered duck, but was very surprised when they only brought him the duck’s NECK. It was kind of gross, actually. The rest of the food was phenomenal, especially my pumpkin soup. The Chinese ladies couldn't figure out how to work my camera to take a group picture for us, but eventualy they found the button, and it ended up being one of my favorite pictures so far!  Old Beijing is amazing at night, and we had a lot of fun just exploring without having to worry about meeting anyone at the correct time or place. Josh did have to rescue me from a scary drunk Asian man who tried to attack me, but that was the only slightly bad note of a fantastic birthday dinner for Kayla, and a good free day!