So I have not posted anything here recently, because I haven' been doing much recently. From about Christmas time until the second week in January I was teaching Winter Camp at my schools. It was basically 3 or 4 hours a day of games with some education thrown in. Some classes (the 2nd graders) were way better than other classes (the 1st graders), but overall it was a pleasant experience. About a week before my scheduled two week vacation, I decided it would not be all that great to sit around the house for two weeks watching TV and knitting. And since I really am one of those people that "spur of the moment" applies to, I decided to go somewhere.

Living in Korea, you're basic choices of cheap air travel are China or Japan, and since Japan is so much more expensive than China, I went with China. I had to pay an exorbitant amount of money for my visa to China, simply because I'm American and the Chinese government ain't too fond of us. But I did get a good deal on the flight, 10 days with arrival in Beijing and departure out of Shanghai for about $320. Could have been cheaper if I booked ahead, but I didn't, so oh well.

Day 1
I left Jinju on Tuesday after an extremely frustrating experience with the gentleman at the travel agency who was handling my visa. If you ever have the inclination to use World Travel to help you with anything, you might as well go shove your head in a toilet. Anyway, my flight out was at noon on Wednesday, which means I don't have to get up too early, but I also get a good amount of day in Beijing. The airport was a breeze, out of the bus and to my gate in about 20 minutes. And about 15 minutes of that happened after security. The flight was short, only 2 hours, and we got a meal. That's something completely unheard of in the American flying experience. A full meal while only traveling 2 hours? Preposterous! I also had no one sitting next to me, and I was in the first row behind First Class, which meant prime spot in the Immigration line when I got off the plane.

The only luggage I brought with my was Daniel's backpack, which it like a normal sized backpack. I really didn't want to lug around a big suitcase, so I packed light and figured I would use the washing facilities at the hostels I stayed at. I took a taxi to my hostel that  a friend Alex stayed at and recommended. It was a little pricey for a hostel in China (about $10 a night), but it was a good place. I dropped off my stuff quickly, and got a map to walk around. Let me tell you, maps in Beijing can be very deceiving. My hostel was located (what I thought) relatively near the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, so I decided to walk there. Also, the map's proportions were grossly under-exaggerated. It took me quiet a while to walk down there, but I did pass through Wangfujing Street, which is a very popular shopping area. I stopped at a roast duck restaurant I saw and got the traditional Peking Duck. It was quite good, I must say. The restaurant staff was a little unfriendly and neglectful, so I couldn't order a drink.

After my meal I walked down to the Forbidden City in time to have the streets closed off for the flag lowering (which they do every day). I didn't mention it before, but Beijing was really, really, REALLY cold. Definitely below freezing. I brought a pair of leggings to wear under my pants, but it didn't seem to help. So waiting for the flag lowering was a bit painful. I then decided to walk around the outside of the Forbidden City, and walk back to the hostel. Again, misleading maps, and I was out walking around for more than an hour after dark before I could finally land a taxi.

The hostel that was staying at was nice, and they had their own little cafe with good food. The beds were also really comfortable. The rooms were pretty cold though. Even with the heater on full blast, I had to keep my extremities in the covers al night. I went to bed pretty early because I as exhausted.

Day 2
I got up early with plans of seeing many things. However, the temperatures outside quickly diminished that possibility. I went to the Temple of Heaven Park and walked around a little, saw the temple. There were lots of people in the park playing games like Chinese hacky sack, badminton, tennis. There were also big groups who were having dance classes, sword fighting lessons, Tai chi. it was pretty interesting, but I don't know how they weren't freezing. 

Then I went to the Beijing Train Station to try to get my ticket to Shanghai, it was immensely crowded though! Like, a thousand people all lining up to get their tickets. I guess I under estimated how busy it would be two weeks before Chinese New Year. Back at the hostel though I was given direction to a travel agent and they got the tick for me. It was the mot expensive part of my whole trip (660, $96). I then found my way to a restaurant, but it wasn't open yet, so I wandered down a nearby hutong. A hutong is the ancient buildings that many Chinese people used to live in. Some areas are still houses, but in this area, the insides were renovated into shops, bars and cafes. It was quite nice. I popped into a few shops, even found a place that sold handmade leather bound journals for pennies!

I walked back to the restaurant after a while and got some good dumplings and gluttonous rice with beef, then back to the hostel. I decided to take it chill from then on, I was tiring myself out too early. I decided to go over to Tiananmen Square to check that area out. I planned to see the flag lowering from that side, but this time I overestimated how long it would take to look at the place, and finished quite early. In the square there is Mao Zedong's memorial hall where you can go see his decaying body. There's also a few monuments, and two long screens showing videos about how great China is. Since I finished looking around, I walled back to Wangfujing Street. I found the snack street that is really famous and took a stroll down there. The Chinese like to put fruit on a stick, and cover it with a light glaze of sugar that hardens up. I got myself a nice big stick of candied strawberries witch was delicious but hard to eat. They also had strange meat for sale, bugs on sticks, roasted pigeons, lizards, tarantulas, scorpions, all sorts of weird things. I played it safe and got some fried tofu. 

Day 3
This was the day I got really frustrated with my guide book. There was a shop I really wanted to go to, so I went to a  nearby park (Ritan Park) to look around first, then searched aimlessly for this shop that I could not find. After the frustration I took a taxi to a nearby sushi restaurant and got a pretty decent lunch set. I was sat in a corner by myself though, so I felt kinda lonely.

Then I made my way back to the Forbidden City. I was stopped by an art student who asked me took look at her school's art exhibit, which I did. I thought it was going to be a scam, but it wasn't. The girl was really nice, explained the meaning behind some of the art work, write my name in calligraphy, and thanked me for my time. There were quite a few really interesting pieces, so I did buy one lacquered piece that she made. The she showed me how to get to the Forbidden City, and warned me about all the scams like the rickshaws and the tea ceremonies. She really put me in a good mood with her friendliness.

I went into the Forbidden City in the late afternoon, about 2 hours before it closed. My feet were hurting something fierce! I walked in and looked around a little. I didn't think it was that big. That was until I passed the 3 building. Once you get past there you can see into the whole of the city. It was immense. Like, immensely immense. There were just buildings everywhere, as far as the eye can see. I think I read that there are 9000 rooms in the whole place. The sight of it made my feet hurt even more. I knew there was no way I could traverse the whole area, so I took a side route, walked around some more, and found my way out. I was probably in there for about an hour though.

On the way back to the hostel I found a place in my guidebook called Dragonfly Massage. Boy, was this place great. I got an oriental foot massage, and a full body Chinese massage (2 hours) for about $40! The rooms ere darkly lit, and smelled great, with nice music playing. It was sooooo relaxing. 

Day 4
I went to Beihai Park on this day, which is just next to the Forbidden City. It's a huge park, with an island in the middle with a huge pagoda on a big hill. I walked around the island for a little. There were people on the frozen lake riding some sort of ice-bikes and having fun. I made my way up a set of huge stairs to the top were the pagoda was (and of course i had to pay to see it. You have to pay to see most things in China.) The views from the top were great. I could even see into part of the Forbidden City. I made my way down and out of the park. I was heading for a specific restaurant nearby, which again, the map showed as not being far, but in face was very far. I eventually made it though. It was a nice place called Le Petite Saigon, which was a mix of French and Vietnamese food. I intended to get Ph, but then I saw a beef stew that looked great so I got that, even though it was more expensive. I should have stuck with the pho, because the stew was very disappointing. It was a wine based soup, but it had a lot of oil, and the pieces of beef were too bug, an I couldn’t cut them with my spoon.

After the lunch I took a subway to the Lama Temple. On the way in there were tons of vendors selling what I though were sparklers. I guessed it was for the new years. When I got into the temple though I learned that they were incense, which you like to pay homage to the Buddha in the temples. The Lama Temple was a great place, I always really like Buddhist temples. There were a few large buildings with Buddha statues inside, and people were lighting their incense and paying their respects, making prayers. The whole place was thick with the incense smoke, but I quite liked the smell. In one of the last building was this humongous Buddha stature that was apparently carved out of one whole piece of Sandalwood. It was about 18 meters tall, reached all the way to the top of the four-story building it was in.

When I got back to the hostel, I tried to get some food, but the kitchen was closed. So I took my map and found a restaurant close to a subway. It turned out to be a great place. It looked really fancy, but the dishes were pretty cheap. There was a lo of strange stuff on the menu, like black turtle, donkey meat, suckling pigeon. I got an order of these duck rolls (3 pieces), which had the minced meat wrapped up in some sort of puff pastry and served with strawberry jam, and I got a tofu dish that came with peas, carrots, mushrooms, and ham, all cut up into small pieces with a think sauce, and also a large jug of a plum herbal tea. All this for was 90 ($12). I went home after that, and realized that I was getting sick. Just in time for my trip to The Wall, yay! I had a terrible night's sleep because I couldn't breathe through my nose and I had a sore throat. 

Day 5
Today I woke up bright an early, ready to go to The Great Wall of China! I booked a tour that would take us to an area of the wall called Mutianyu, give us about 2 hours there, get lunch, and then go to the Ming Tombs, it was about 320 ($48). I got in a van with some other people in introduced myself. There was a couple from Brazil, an older woman from Germany, and some college-aged people from Australia. It took about an hour to get to the wall. We split up into two groups, because there were different ways to get up to the wall. My group (the Brazilians and the German woman) took a ski lift up to Tower 6, while the others took a lift up to Tower 14. 

We decided to walk to Tower 5 on the right, which was really steep. It was hard to get up there. We all came prepared for the cold, but got quite hot hiking up. Some of the steps took a lot of effort to get up. We wound up going all the way to Tower 4, and got some great pictures. You could see our part of the wall, and off in the distance ere other towers from a different part, scattered along the ridge of the mountains. The trip up and down from Tower 4 took about an hour. We then walked along a much easier part, making it all the way to Tower 12. Here was a little hilly, and some parts were a bit touch to climb, but not as hard as the first part. It was really beautiful, and the sky was bright blue, which made the pictures even better. At one point we saw a donkey on the wall! I don't know how the hell it got up there.

We made our way down by taking a toboggan ride! It was kind of fun, but the cart was a little hard to control, the lever to go faster was hard to push. But it was an experience. Not many people can say they've taken a toboggan down from the Great Wall of China. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant on the way out. The food was okay, but there wasn’t enough for 10 people, and I think most of us were still hungry
 
S Next we headed for the Ming Tombs. This is the area where the 13 emperors of the Ming Dynasty were buried. Only three have been excavated, and only one has the actual tomb excavated. We went to that one, it's called Dingling. Our tour guide was great and told us all about the tombs. We got to go into the underground tomb and see where the Emperor was buried. It took about another hour to get back after that. I was starving by then, so I ordered food from the cafe and scarfed it down. I was pretty sick by this point, and I'm sure that being out in the cold all day, workin' the lungs, didn't help.

Day 6
This was the day I took the train to Shanghai, but I didn't need to be to the train station until 8:45pm. So I thought I would make today a museum day, try to keep myself inside since I was sick. Ya, that didn't work out. Some of them I couldn't find (damned guidebook), some of them were closed on Mondays, and the National Museum still isn't open from it's renovation. So I was angry, and cold, and getting hungry. I decided to give up my efforts to educate myself, and went and got lunch. The guidebook had a roast duck restaurant in there that I decided to go to. It was very posh, and there were quite a few people in there on a Monday afternoon. I got the roast duck again. I think the meat at the first restaurant was better, but here you got more toppings for your pancakes, you also got a bigger bowl of soup, some black sesame dessert, and a fruit platter. And al this was only a dollar or two more expensive than the first place. So overall it was very good, I was stuffed to the max.

So I still had a few hours before I needed to leave, therefore I headed back to the hostel to read. Before I left I put a bunch of ebooks on my iPod to fill the time. So I stuck around for a while, got some more grub, then headed off early. I had no idea what to expect from the train station, so I wanted to make sure I had enough time. I was heading out of Beijing South Train Station. When I got there on the subway I was pretty confused about where to go. I eventually found some guys who spoke a little English and they helped me out. I basically sat in this big are of seats, near my gate, and waited until boarding. We actually boarded 1 hour before departure, which i thought was strange. First I went to the wrong car, which i found out after a Chinese woman started hassling me. When I got to my won car I found I was on the top bunk, something I didn't want. By then I was pretty sick, and I must have had a fever because I was boiling hot. I basically crawled up into my bed and tried to sleep. The bed wasn't that comfortable, and it was on a train, so you can imagine how well I slept.

More to come later on Shangai