Great Wall Grandeur!

The Great Wall has always been on a list of mine to go see, experience, and love. Well, that dream came true on October 2nd, 2008. I hiked the Great Wall, which was not an easy task. I literally stood on top of a mountain and looked out over the city below. No wonder they built it to keep the Huns away. Let me first say, it wasn't what I expected it to be. I thought it would be wider with walls like a castle. Instead it was like a little path way that scaled the mountain face and was at least 10 feet tall maybe taller. I guess all the Chinese people were going for was the height. Their such tiny little things they don't need the width like us Americans. Sad but true. I had a dream and I got to see, experience, and love every minute of it.










I had to pause for a minute and take in everything I was seeing, experiencing, and loving. It was without a doubt the coolest thing ever!

It was super hot that day so I was sweating pretty good. Don't laugh too hard!

On the way back down all the girls and I decided we wanted to take the Zip-line. Don't worry all they do is wrap you up tight and let you go! Talk about adventure at it's finest!!

The wall was also very very steep at places. Almost completely vertical actually.

When we were off the Zip-line there was a cute little boat that was waiting for us to take us back to the Parking Lot. This picture was on the boat.

Forbidden City FEVER!!

The fever began one morning when the girls and I decided we wanted to go to the Forbidden City. Before we knew it we were standing before the front gate along with the MILLIONS of other Chinese tourists. When I say millions I really mean millions. Just walking through the front gate we were sandwiched between little Chinese people rambling on with gibberish words and pausing to look at us with these faces of pure shock, like they have never seen a white person before. Well, actually they haven't which is super weird.....anyway, back to the story. After about 10 minutes of trying to walk through the door we finally hit the City grounds! Another dream fulfilled! I was encompasses with the awe and wonder of the Forbidden City walls! Take a look at the adventure...The fever never fails.

Before walking in the front gates.













What did I tell you about the millions of people? Absolute chaos!













All the other pictures you see are self explanatory. I hope you enjoy the Fever as much as I did.



































































































Out of all places to meet up with Serena and her family the Forbidden City was the place with the millions of Chinese people. Serena is one of the teachers at school in Changzhou. Crazyness!













We met Hans right as we walked through the gate. He gave us girls a fabulous tour of the City.













Apparently throwing money on the turtle/dragon means good luck. Hans had never seen this before so it was a first for the 5 of us!

Imperial Flower Garden

At first we thought the Imperial Flower Garden was way lame because there weren't any flowers in site. Some Imperial Flower Garden this was! You would think that flowers would be really easy to spot right? They're colorful little things that smell really good. Just follow your nose and you will find the flowers. Well after about a half hour we were very disappointed we spent 5 qui on nothing!! But boy were we wrong! After about another 15 minutes we spotted them!! All you have to do is walk around for 45 minutes with all searching eyes! But what we saw was incredible. I'll let you decide what you think for yourselves.

There was a choir of people behind us singing opera. It was surprisingly really good music. Man the Chinese are super cool!













Bamboo is one of the coolest things I have ever seen! I felt like a model when taking pictures.

















There were weeping willows everywhere!! As you can tell I'm super excited.













When we spotted the little temple of prayer we just had to take time out of our day to Meditate. (Pay our respects to Buddah)

















Mulan anyone? Sign me up!!

















Look we found the flowers! They are absolutely beautiful huh!? What did I tell ya?

















Yet another picture we just had to take! There were just way to many cool buildings in this Imperial Flower Garden.

















Kat and I are being ridiculous. Taiji was calling our names, or should I say Martial arts?













I think we went in the side enterance of the Imperial Flower Garden because this picture is the main enterance. Look Flowers galore!!

FOOD CHINESE STYLE....

The food here in China can be quite deceiving. You may look at something and think, "Hey, that actually looks really good!!!" and get all excited and then when you taste it, you are very very disappointed and end up spitting it out. On the other hand you may look at something and think, "There is no way anyone should ever eat something that looks like that!!! That's disgusting!" and the next minute you are scarfing it down because it's so good. You can never assume here in China. What your served is what you eat and you deal with it. You may go home with a full stomach or just the opposite leaving with just the sound of rumbling in your tummy. I'm thankful that I've had more days with leaving full rather then the rumbling.

















Most of the food still contain their bones .... Helpful Hint: Always watch out for the noggin!!!













I was told before coming to China that the noodles were always safe to eat. So what did I do?? I went straight for the noodles. They are sooooooooo good.













Um.......All I gotta say is the rest of this food tastes exactly how it looks. The veges are always good.


















































































I know one thing is for sure....YOU CAN NEVER GO WRONG WITH ICE CREAM!!! We found a Cold Stone in Beijing and if you think for one second that we weren't going to stop, your CRAZY! It was sooooo good. The melting in your mouth, the delicious fruit, and sweet caramel....ah, I'm drooling just remembering what it was like. I've got one word for you, YUMMY!!

A Day in the City With May!!

So first I must apologize for not updating my blog sooner. I have horrible news to tell you all. I got my camera stolen about a month ago and it's been hard getting the pictures off of the other girls camera's..and as you can tell with traveling and what not it has taken me forever. Please forgive me. However, I would like to kick off my blogging rampage with a day in the city with May!! May is one of my students I help teach on Tuesday's and Thursday's reading. She is beautiful and does well. Her family is very polite and humble in a way that is undescribable. They cooked us Lunch and it was probably the best Chinese food I have ever had. HOT!! The food we have at the school cafeteria is cold probably 90% of the time. Which makes some of us queezy, but after having it for so long you get used to it. So again let me explain to you the food that we had was INCREDIBLE!!! I even ate fish. I'm beginning to like it. A lot actually.











































This little boy was just random. He was driving a remote control car. It was pretty intense.














The day consisted of us going into the city and enjoying an amusement park. We walked there from May's house. It wasn't that far away, only about a 10-15 minute walk.







































I loved it so much!!! The swings were crazy talk! They went so fast you felt like the chains were going to snap and fling out into the middle of nowhere! But no worries I'm safe....those chains really are super strong. My absolute favorite part was the bumper cars though. The bumper cars were legit! I wish I could explain them better. But for now all I can say is that when you got hit, you really bumped around! As far as the roller coaster went it wasn't as fun as I hoped it would have been. But the day was amazing! The family was great!