Great Wall of China and Terracotta Soldiers!

On Thursday, we met Tammy and Carmen to go to THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA! This was the whole reason I wanted to come to China. We went to the Badaling section, which is not what I would have chosen, but it wasn’t up to me. J Because my knee had been giving me fits, I went to try to take the cable car, only to discover that the cable car wasn’t working. On the way, I ran into some American college girls who I tagged along with for the rest of the day. It was quite fun and interesting. Because it was so cold, the Wall wasn’t very busy. However, I did meet tourists from all over the world. It was pretty spectacular.

My friends from New York!

The Wall was amazing. It is absolutely breathtaking (in more ways than one) and such a bucket list item! I never imagined that I would actually get to go and climb The Great Wall of China!

That night we again hopped a sleeper train to head to Xian, the home of the Terracotta Soldiers. This was Robyn’s Bucket list item. We arrived there early so it was not busy yet. Again, this is such a inspiring place. To think of the dedication it must have taken to create these warriors with such painstaking detail. Just Wow! There are so many of them and they are not even finished excavating. You can still see people attempting to piece the warriors together and working to bring them out of the earth.

When we arrived back in Beijing (after another sleeper train) we immediately went to the Paijayuan (sp?) Antique market! This was such an awesome place to go. It is truly a feast for all the senses. There are rows and rows of beautiful pottery, beads, silk, paintings, etc… Any souvenir you could want can be found here. At lunch, we met Carmen and her roommate Amy for some Peking Roast Duck, one of Beijing’s specialties. It was delicious. I then headed to explore the Temple of Heaven before meeting Robyn at the hotel to pack so we could head back to Taiwan!

Beijing - Happy New Year in Harbing!

This year, I had the opportunity to spend New Year’s in China. Robyn and I left Tainan on Friday night. We took the High Speed Train to Taipei to make sure we had plenty of time to make our flight.

After an eventful journey where Robyn spilled her dinner on her new coat, we arrived at the hotel, where I Skyped with my dad and Robyn informed me that my accent gets thicker when I am talking to “home”.

Saturday morning, we headed to the airport, boarded an airplane and flew off into the sun! We arrived in China, retrieved our backpacks, and headed to our hotels. This was when we realized it was COLD! Like really cold. That night we went and met our friend, Carmen and her friend Tammy. After doing some fun shopping in the hutong neighborhood, we went to a little restaurant and hung out.

On Sunday, we met up with Tammy and went to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. The Forbidden City was so strange, because it was incredibly large, but so little of it was indoors. It is hard to imagine people living there. It was also extremely cold. Tiananmen Square was awe inspiring. It was so big, but it was easy to visualize large numbers of people being forced to stand in lines while Chairman Mao spoke to them.

 

Unfortunately at this point my camera lens broke so I didn’t get many more good photos for a few days.

That night, we met up with another of Carmen’s coworkers and caught the train to Harbin. We took a sleeper train, so there was a small room with bunk beds. Robyn and I were in a room with a cute little old couple.

We arrived in Harbin and went to find our hostel. Harbin was FREEZING. I’m talking -33 C freezing.

While in Harbin, we basically shuffled through the snow from coffee shop to coffee shop. I did buy a Russian nesting doll since we were so close to Russia. We also discovered that our eyelashes froze and melted every time we came in and out of a building, therefore ruining any mascara we had on. That night, we went to the official Ice Sculpture Festival which was really interesting. There were so many cool snow sculptures and ice sculptures, including Disney princesses and castles made from blocks of ice.

Since it was New Year’s Eve, we went to a local pub and had fish and chips for dinner while we rang in the new year!

The next day, we did more snow shuffling to coffee shops before catching our train back to Beijing. This time, we had to take the “hard sleepers which meant there were six beds in a compartment with no door which meant no privacy. The lights were also turned off so we played word games by the light of a flashlight.

When we arrived back in Beijing, Robyn and I went to our hotel where Robyn proceeded to sleep for several hours. I, on the other hand, went shopping! I went and found a new camera lens and went to several shops that were in my tour book that looked cool.

After Robyn woke up, we did a rushed tour of the Summer Palace. It was so cold, but very beautiful. We got there late, so we didn’t get to see all of it before it closed! We made it an early night since we were so exhausted. 

Christmas 2012

Presents with my English Club!

Christmas this year was so much fun! The weeks leading up to Christmas, I taught my students how to make ornaments for the Christmas tree as well as watching Elf! (By the way, Elf gets really old and unfunny after watching it 15 times.)

My club had such fun! On Christmas Eve, we had a Christmas party, complete with gingerbread cookies, brownies, Dirty Santa and Christmas games.

Christmas Eve night, one of my friends, Marissa came to spend the night with me. She, Robyn and I went to Bus-7 for a Christmas carol service, which was quite fun! We only had two tickets, so Marissa ended up hanging out under the table some of the time. Then Marissa, Vanessa and I hung out at home while I made pancake batter!

On Christmas morning, we got up and got ready for Christmas Brunch. I had some friends over for Pancakes and breakfast! I made my family's special pancakes which are colored and shaped! We ate and ate and ate. We also did a Dirty Santa exchange, which was hilarious!

Pancake Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus

Swirly Pancakes!

Christmas Presents

Yay for friends!

Everyone stuffing their faces!

 Later that night, I Skyped with the family and watched them open my presents and theirs! It was a lovely Christmas!

Judson asked for Books for Christmas! Pigs are flying!

Family!

Sports Day 2012

This year’s Sports Day at my school was quite fun!

The Sports Day consists of an elaborate opening ceremony where each class prepares a dance, or show. They also showcase the winners of the “cheerleading” competition! The students prepare really hard for Sports Day! They practice weeks in advance!

They have track and field events as well as fun ones like 7 legged race, potato sack races and tug of war! This year, I helped one of the 11^th grade classes in Tug of War and we won!

Of course, there was the normal shaving cream fight with the PE classes at the end of the day!