Beijing at last

Finally back in Beijing a few of us mojoers decided it would be a really good idea to get some massages. We could not have been more correct about anything. 100rmb or $15.20 got us an hour long massage. Best $15 I've ever spent. After that we went and got some Hong Kong style food that was probably the most delicious Chinese food I have ever eaten. 

The next day we finally got to sleep in a little bit and then we headed out to the Forbidden City and Tiannenmen Square.  We got to the Forbidden City and I'll be honest I didn't know too much about it so I was completely amazed by the sheer size of the place.  Walking around inside was amazing, there was so much to see that I felt like we could have spent at least 3 days walking around in there and we still would have been missing something. 

From the front gate looking in

Walking around in the forbidden city made us hungry so a group of us decided to go get some Peking Duck! We found a restaurant right outside Tiannenmen Square and went and had some essential Chinese food. I have never been a fan of Chinese food so eating something like Peking duck was huge for me. 

Duck statue outside the restaurant

Soon to be dinner!

We walked around Tiannenmen for a few minutes and then headed to the Pearl Market to do some shopping and haggling. I had never seen such a huge outdoor shopping market of department stores. In the department stores, things were pretty much the same price as they would have been in the states. But once you went a little bit off the main drag, you got in to haggling territory. There, the calculator was your greatest tool and you made the rules. Since we were clearly not from around there, the merchants were way over pricing the stuff we were trying to buy. There was definitely room to talk them down and they drove a hard bargain but you could get them down to a pretty reasonable price. This was a crazy experience for me because I am so used to our system where you pay the price thats on the tag. After a long afternoon of shopping we decided to get some Hot Pot food and then head back to the hotel. 

Unfortunately, this was petty much the end of our trip. Our flight left Beijing the next afternoon and after another ridiculously long flight, we were back in Newark before we knew it. It was nice to be back in the US but I found myself really missing China already. I still really hope I will be lucky enough to get the opportunity to go back to that truly amazing country. 

Touchdown in BTV!

Its a Wild Wall for Sure

Our quick two hour flight from Wuhan to Beijing was followed up by a train ride on the train that was built for the 2010 Olympic Games and then by a parade of taxi's that took us to our hotel, the Green Tree Inn. The first night in Beijing was pretty short, we didn't get to the hotel until late that night. Once we settled in we hit the streets in search of some food and found some McDonalds. Finally some American food! After that we stepped into the Hot Cat club to unwind for a little bit before returning to the hotel.

The next morning we awoke bright and early as usual to catch a bus to meet up with Wild William Lindesay. Wild Will would be our tour guide that took us on our 10km hike up to the tallest part of the great wall, the Ox Horn.

From the bottom of the Ox Horn

Our adventure started at William's house at the foot of the mountains and after a quick English breakfast of tea and pastries we started our hike. We walked through the woods for about an hour before we hit the wall and the entire time he was filling us in on tons of wall history. The man really knew EVERYTHING about the wall. What was so special about where we were going on the wall was that it was far away from the tourist attraction parts of the wall. We truly were out in the wild. 

The views from the wall were truly amazing and we could not have had more perfect weather for the day. Those were some of the first blue skies we had seen the entire trip. It was nice to get out of the city smog for a little bit.  

View off the wall

We were all exhausted after such a long hike and we came back to William's homestead to probably the most satisfying meal of the entire trip, home made dumplings. I think I will remember this part of the trip for the rest of my life because how often will you be able to say "I climbed to the tallest part of the Great Wall of China?" I hope to make it back out there to spend more time up on the wall with William. 

I'm on a Boat.... In China

After we said Zaijen to our new Chinese friends, it was time to take a relaxing bus ride to our boat trip where we would spend two days and nights cruising up the Yangtze  river. The bus ride took about 5 hours and we got to see some pretty interesting country side on the way. We stopped in for a bite to eat in a restaurant built into the cliffs over looking the river.

After our cliffside lunch we went on this long hiking trail that had an awesome ropes course. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of it because I was busy monkeying around on it! After the awesome ropes course, we walked through a huge cave that was full of stalactites and stalagmites. There had been power run through the cave so it was filled with different colored lights. 

Once we emerged out of the cave, we got back on our bus and finally made it to our boat. On the bus ride we were hoping that they would have some good western plumbing and thankfully they did. I think the "Squatty-Potties" were getting to every one a little bit. Once we were on the boat we finally had some down time so we hit the top deck and enjoyed a game of cards. 

We awoke the next morning to a lovely soundtrack at 5:30 sharp and found that the boat was docked. we got off our boat and then got on another boat that was taking us to some traditional "Peapod" boats to take us up the river the way that the natives used to hundreds and even thousands of years before us.  The peapod boats were maned by four oarsmen and a captain. On the boat we got to learn all about the history that had been taken away by the flooding caused by the Three Gorges Dam project. 

The second day on the boat we went to a temple up on top of a hill that had an incredible amount of stairs leading up to it. At the top we got to walk around the temple a little bit and enjoy some incredible views and snap a couple of Mojo group pictures. 

So many stairs

Mojo minus our fearless leader 

The next day we left the boat bright and early and took the 5 hour bus ride back to Wuhan where we met up with Steve for the last time and got to do a little shopping. Then we were back on an airplane headed towards Beijing. 

BICYCLES!!

After a long day of touring and walking around, Noctis and Eric wanted to show us what they do for fun in Wuhan. We met up with some Mojo students Andrew and Dan and their hosts and went to downtown Wuhan to have a night out. We walked to a river embankment where a woman was selling paper hot air balloons so we bought some and set them off in pairs. This was such an awesome experience to take part in a Chinese tradition and do something unique with our students.

After we sent off our balloons, the same woman was selling some sparklers and there were fire works going off a little ways down the beach. This is one of my favorite parts of the time we spent in Wuhan because it was a really unique experience that not too many people can say that they did. 

 Fireworks on the beach

sparklers with the hosts 

After they shared some of their culture with us we decided to step into a night club and wrap up our evening with a little bit of dancing and loud music. 

Club Muse

This place is HUGE

George and I got the privilege to stay with one of the wealthiest families in Hubei provence. Our student's name is Noctis Chow and he was one of the only students that doesn't live on their high school campus. His classmate and friend Eric also stayed with us at the house. Noctis' father owns a factory where they make machines and parts of ships, George and I were lucky to get an early morning tour of the factory which was a truly special experience.

In front of the factory

(left to right: Eric, Mother, Father, Noctis, Me, George)

Walking around the factory was unreal. There were six MASSIVE buildings with 6000 workers total. This tour was something very unique to George and my experience because we were the only ones that got to see what we saw.

After we left the factory it was time to meet up with the rest of the class at their high school. When we met our families the night before it was dark out so we couldn't really see much of the school, but in the daylight the place was HUGE. It must be about ten times bigger than any high school I have ever seen.

Once we got to the school, we went into Steve's classroom and got to know the students a little better. After the class period was over, the students assembled in the courtyard for their flag raising ceremony and some announcements. We were put up in on top of the stairs next to the guy doing the announcements so we were pretty much the center of attention for all 4000 students. thats 8000 eyes burning into us, it was quite a feeling. 

Initially, we were supposed to go down the line and introduce ourselves to all of the students but luckily we didn't end up having to do that. After the flag ceremony, Steve took us on a tour of the rest of the campus so we could see how the rest of the school looked. 

After the high school, we went and toured the College of International Culture Exchange where we sat in on a mandarin class with students from all over the world.  The University was cool but we had a meeting with some students and it felt like they were trying to recruit us and that was not something we really wanted to be doing so it turned a few of us off to it. After that it was time for a bus ride back to the high school to meet back up with our hosts and have an evening out on the town. 

And Then it Hit me... This is China

After a quick flight to Newark, we were on the plane to Beijing. Until then, the longest plane ride I had ever taken was 4 hours so this 13+ hour flight was going to be interesting to say the least. There isn't really much to say about the flight other than it was long and I watched the flight plan on the TV for probably 2 hours. Once the plane landed it finally dawned on me, Holy shit I'm in China. After that realization came another one, Damnit we have to get on another plane putting our flight total to 3 flights in one day. Finally we arrived in Wuhan where we were greeted by Steve Wilmarth, our on the ground contact. Once we got to the Hotel we dropped our bags and took a walk around this eerily quiet shopping area. After the walk it was time for some much needed sleep in our hotel rooms.

The next morning we went and got some traditional Wuhan food and then headed out to a Buddhist temple.

After the temple it was on to a museum where we saw all sorts of ancient chinese history and watched a traditional bells performance. I thought the bells were interesting because music is a passion of mine and I like to experience different music. Once we left the museum it was time to go meet our host families and get to know what family life is like in China.

China Part 1: The Build Up.

When it came to registration time in the fall, I wasn't sure which China classes I should be taking. Then my friend Sarah Prak told me about Mojo. At first I was skeptical about it; what could I do in China? I ended up signing up for the class not knowing that it would change my outlook on the entire country. The first time the class met I remember wondering who I was going to know other than Sarah and George, who Sarah also convinced to join. I didn't want to be traveling to the other side of the world with a bunch of people I didn't know. Once everyone filed in my mind was put at ease as I started to see some familiar faces walk through the door. Then there was Rob... I had never taken class with Rob so the only things I knew about him were what people had told me, and that was he is full of energy and he is a yak farmer. Now that I think about it, that's definitely Rob. Once class started to really get under way, we started getting into the details of what we were going to be doing and I just wanted to go right away. The classes kept on going and we kept learning about this country that is just so different from our own. We had one class where we were supposed to be learning some Mandarin. Little did we know that we would just be saying words that we had no idea what they meant. The whole class seemed very confused as to what was going on as we tentatively butchered the phrases she was teaching us. I was actually hoping to get to learn more Chinese before we went but in the build up to it all I think I just ran out of time. The next thing I knew it was 4:00AM and I'm sitting in Burlington airport waiting to go on the trip of my life.