Brooke's adventures in China!

Wednesday, November 18 – Between China and Japan
15:43
First off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MOTHER, Uncle Michael and Ryan Biehle (my best friend on the ship)! Secondly, I had the best possible time in China. My adventure felt exactly how an adventure should feel. It was difficult to make bullet points for China, because there was just so much going on!

Hong Kong, like I mentioned before, was great and I loved it. I would go back in a heartbeat. The skyline is absolutely stunning. Our tour of Hong Kong was fantastic - I got over 500 pictures and had a delicious lunch. Victoria’s Peak has the most breathtaking views of HK. The nightlife is incredible. Joey, Anjuli, Matt and I went out to dinner and had such a great time. We spent the majority of dinner laughing. There were streets of bars and clubs, and 7elevens with cheap beer. Matt and I ended up smoking hookah with Viki, Chelsea and some others before going on a mission to find Alyssa with Brian. At one point we cheers-ed with Dean Nick. We took the ferry to dinner, and had to take a taxi back - which involves going through an underwater tunnel (mom would love this). It’s really long and really cool!

Our flight experience was so neat. The airport was huge. I have never been on a flight knowing more than two people. It was really interesting being on a flight knowing 70+ (other groups were on our flight, too). The food was excellent. Toward the end of the flight, they put on a video where the flight attendants showed you how to stretch - it was quite humorous. I sat next to Andrea, whom I never really talked to before and now really like. I sat behind James and Brian, and near Chelsea, Carley and Allie. We took off in warm weather and landed in the snow! Jackie was so stoked because it was her first time seeing snow.

The group we had on our huge independent trip was amazing. Once we got to Beijing we had to split up into 3 groups since there was 70 of us. I couldn’t of asked or received a better group. I had Jackie, Anjuli, Carley, Lane, Mary-Chanler, Katie, Vanessa, the two Allys, several other great girls and one boy - Mike (25 total). Our tour guide, Robert, was so adorable. He would address us as “girls and the boy” or “my beautiful flowers and the bee”. At the end he told us about his wife, and how he wanted a girl (to which the whole bus full of girls went, “AW”).

The first night in Beijing was a little rough. A decent sized group of us tried to go out to dinner together - which epically failed. We ended up at this random bar in a hotel that served “American” food. That bar is very confused as to what American food is. Not one of us enjoyed our meals. After we attempted to go to Ho Hi (that’s how it’s pronounced, I’m not sure how it’s spelled). That was another epic fail. We ended up back at our hotel, in which I wanted to go back out because I did not want to waste our night in Beijing. James and I ended up finding Ho Hi, which is this amazing bar, club and restaurant area - that looks like Epcot since it’s all around this lake. All the places have bright neon lights. It was also deserted. James and I walked around the entire lake, stopping in a bar where we watched a bit of American sports and had a Chinese version of hot chocolate which was hot water that was brown. (That one hotel in South Africa has the best hot chocolate in the entire world. Literally.) We were still hungry, but all the restaurants closed on us, so we tried to find our way to McDonald’s. Taxi drivers wanted nothing to do with either James or I - these nice locals ended up helping us out, with the very little english they knew and the VERY little Chinese we knew. Apparently they say McDonald’s differently. At the end of the night, James and I ended up with some McDonald’s in our tummies and back to our hotel safe and sound.

The third day of our tour (second day in Beijing) included going to the Silk Street Pearl Market for an hour, where we all purchased warmer clothing. There was absolutely way too much to buy in there and for way too cheap. It was a shoppers paradise, M-ma would of loved it. I tried my hardest to spend next to nothing. The second portion of our day included touring a bell tower, having lunch at a sweet woman’s house, and riding around on rickshaw of sorts through a traditional style neighborhood. We then spent around two hours traveling to The Great Wall of China, climbed a bit of it at sunset and then had a wonderful dinner before making the second most difficult hike of my life.

The hike was about 40 minutes straight up, in the snow, while wearing layers upon layers of clothing. You strip as you hike up because you get so incredibly hot from your layers and hiking. Oh, and your only source of light was the little flash light they gave you. It was a beautiful hike up - you could see every possible star in the sky (which you really can’t imagine how many there are until you see it yourself). Once at the top, the three groups separated into three different watch towers. Our group got the short straw and we had to hike an extra 15 to 20 minutes on the most dangerous parts of the wall in the pitch black, ice and snow. I had a bit of video from this adventure, but it still doesn’t capture what we went through. There was this one staircase that was all ice, and if you tried to hold on to the wall - the wall would fall apart. There was another part that was more or less a 80 degree incline, with no edges.

We were all pretty thrilled when we got to our watch tower. We spread out our two mats and two sleeping bags - grabbed a beer and headed out under the stars. The majority of us couldn’t hack the cold for two long, myself included, and cocooned ourselves in our sleeping bags. This was the one and only time that I was offered unlimited beer - and I didn’t even finish my one. This went for most everyone else. We were visited by a few others from other watch towers - and they were quite silly, mentioning the death traps they had to go through to get to our watch towers. A few people actually SLEPT outside, which had to have been 10 degrees colder. I failed to mention it was negative 15 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) when we got off the bus, at the bottom of the mountain. I can’t even tell you how cold it was in our watch tower.

Sleeping was interesting. I was warm, outside of my feet. I went through a few panic attacks from being so bundled up. I woke up a few times wishing it was morning already because I didn’t want to sleep anymore. I finally woke up around 5:30, got up and peed - in nature on The Great Wall (it wasn’t even close to as bad as I thought it was going to be). As I headed back, I ran into Anjuli - who went through the same night as me, besides she didn’t have panic attacks, she just kept waking up having to pee. The both of us went back to our cocoons, and had the best one hour sleep that was interrupted by Robert begging all of us to get up to see the sunrise. Me, and my photographer (shutter-bug) self, got up out of my toasty cove to take a few rather crappy pictures - in awe at the sight of the miles of wall going off in the distance - and went back into my sleeping bag. I enjoyed some peach juice and Oreo cookies for breakfast (the night before I got to experience a peanut butter cream Oreo - delicious), before heading out on our hike - which involved going BACK through our death trap, in the opposite direction. Our group officially hiked more of the Great Wall than any other group.

The hike itself was fantastic. It wasn’t as difficult as Table Mountain. The snow and ice caused a few challenges. A few parts of the wall were rather sketchy, but really neat to climb on. I stopped A LOT to take pictures. Anjuli was my official model of the day (which no one ever minds, due to my camera). We hiked for about 3 miles, and I couldn’t tell you how many hours. The last leg of the wall was the most difficult. After crossing a bridge that is hanging above water, you hike up. It was more or less a staircase from the very bottom of it to the top of it (which isn’t the highest part of the wall, but still difficult). Once you got to “the end”, you could either hike even more to get down or zip line down. I chose to zip line. Jackie and I did it together, and it was incredible. The view was incredible. The act was incredible. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done and it took 30 seconds. Neither Jackie or I have ever done anything like zip lining, and we did it OFF The Great Wall of China.

Once at the bottom, we had lunch which involved an orange chicken of sorts that was my MOST FAVORITE DISH EVER. I was so stoked when she set it down. Whoever told me that Chinese food in China isn’t as good as American Chinese food is DAMN WRONG. It’s better, WAY better, here. We also only had lunch at the bottom of The Great Wall because our buses broke down - the rumor that went around was that the Diesel froze over night.

Our buses eventually started back up, and we headed back to Beijing. This is the part of the trip where our inside joke “FAOUR-CLOCK” comes in, but I won’t explain. We were given the option to go to an acrobat show (which cost $50 USD) or go back to the market. My friends and I all chose the market - it’s just such a rad place. I didn’t buy a lot there, but I sure wanted to. The rest of the night was spent at the hotel watching Chinese television (which is fantastic - I actually saw a really old American Oreo commercial dubbed over in Chinese), showing our purchases to each other, and wifi (which was spent on Skype and email only - since China blocks social networking sites).

The final day was more or less miserable in the sense of weather. We were absolutely freezing. We toured the Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Bird's Nest and Swim Cube. We had another excellent meal - which again included “orange chicken”. We were also served Peking Duck, which was delicious. After our regular tour, we were then taken on this crazy escapade - where we were taken to this tea ceremony, which was basically an infomercial for their tea, tea cups, and “pee-pee boy”. After that we had the option to go to a kung fu (more money out of your pocket) or to do whatever you wanted in the area of the kung fu show. Jackie, Anjuli and I got Pizza Hut - which took all of the time we were allotted, and we had to rush out of the restaurant. Our night ended with goodbyes to our lovely tour guide Robert, and an awesome sleeper train to Shanghai.

The first bit of being on the train was interesting. Jackie and I were roomed with Vanessa (which was great), but we thought we would also be with Anjuli (who was ticketed for the room next to us). The other person in our room was this girl Katie, who is one of my least favorite people on this trip. She is also the least favorite of many others. Here is a few reasons why: she has a very annoying voice, she doesn’t seem to think before she speaks, her opinions are off the charts, she thinks she got several items of hers stolen by strangers in Mauritius when it was most definitely her “friends” (this story blows my mind at how dim she is), she lost her debit card during our trip and doesn’t really know how, she dared to ask other people to buy her dinner with several shopping bags in her hands since she lost her debit card, later she asked Jackie to use her iTouch to email home (which was a fiasco in itself since she’s so dim), etc. Jackie entered the room before me, and turned around with this face of “oh-my-god-no-fucking-way” (which she describes as feelings of future disastrous situations and being severely upset). I immediately knew what that face meant. At the same time there were people from other rooms trying to switch people so they could be with their friends. I took this opportunity to ask Katie to switch with one of them, so we could have Anjuli and they could have their friends and so we didn’t have to have Katie. She was hesitant at first, claiming she already put everything under her bed - but I wouldn’t take no for an answer. It took her about 5 minutes to clear out, and about 2 minutes for us to get settled in cabin 10!

While we were chatting in our room, amazed at how great the sleeper train and our adventure was, the two Allys come by. The blonde Ally says in a very “ugh” way, “you will never guess who’s in my room.” I laugh and say, “I bet I can, because I was the one who kicked her out of my room and put her into yours.” It was quite hysterical. The night on the sleeper train was spent exploring other SAS cabins, who were ALL drinking. Actually, if they didn’t bring on their own alcohol, they quickly made the train sell out of beer. The four of us in cabin 10 locked our door around midnight, to avoid anymore drunken interruptions, and chatted until we all fall asleep. It was really nice.

This adventure was so epic. I felt like I made some really good friends, and I felt like I rekindled a friendship that was almost lost. I have some of the best pictures of the trip. I can now say I have seen the great wall - as well as slept, hiked and zip lined off of it (all in the snow). I was really stoked to see Tiananmen Square, although our tour guide would not discuss what we know it for.

Jackie and my plan for the last day in Shanghai was to get tattoos. I asked the woman who spoke a bit of english that was on our bus from the train station to the ship where I could get a tattoo. She wrote down of a place we could go, and also wrote down “tattoo” in Chinese. Jackie and I put our stuff on the ship, had to wait to be cleared (because we missed that bit by being in Beijing and not going with the ship from Hong Kong to Shanghai). During our hour or so wait time, we heard an announcement on the ship that explained that the ship would not be leaving Shanghai until the next day - which meant we had another night in Shanghai. It was due to some bed weather in the seas that we did not want to go through. I thought it was so awesome being able to stay one more night in Shanghai!

Since we had to wait a rather long time to be cleared, we decided to get lunch where we met up with Matt and Viki. The two of them, as well as Chelsea and Rachel decided they wanted to come with us. The six of us obviously couldn’t fit into one taxi, so we decided to take two. Matt showed the two taxi drivers the SAME piece of paper on where to go. The two taxis didn’t make it to the same place. Rachel, Matt and I spent a good 10 minutes waiting for the other taxi or the people who were in it. We then ventured off after some warm beverages (since it was rainy and chilly out). We asked around in this mall of sorts for a tattoo shop. We were told to go this way and that way. We ventured in this section of Shanghai for about an hour until we found a piercing shop who pointed us in the direction to find a tattoo shop. We took a taxi there, found the tattoo shop after about 20 minutes. When we arrived, the man in the shop wasn’t the least bit interested in us being there and wanted to charge me triple what I would be charged in the states. I decided against getting it there. It didn’t feel right, and I didn’t want to pay more than I would at home.

So the day changed a bit. After Matt and Rachel ate some Subway (and Matt had a tasty smoothie of sorts), Matt suggested taking the Metro to People’s Market. We arrive, look around in the shops for about 20 minutes. Matt splits from Rachel and I and comes back not even two minutes later with an excited look on his face, telling us that we need to come with him to, “see this”. He brings us around the corner. I hear a tattoo gun, and then I slip into this 8x4 shop that’s half full of wigs and the other half has a man with his tattoo kit tattooing my friend Viki. Jackie just finished getting her tattoo, and Chelsea was sitting on the sofa (that was some how shoved in that shop).

The other taxi (Chelsea, Jackie and Viki) explained their experience with us: a very tall man who spoke English and helped point them in the right direction, shopping while looking for a tattoo shop, randomly finding a tattoo shop, finding out that the tattoo artist only spoke Chinese, and a random woman who spoke English and Chinese helped translate to the man what the girls wanted and stuck around for about an hour.
While Viki and Chelsea were getting tattoos, Matt, Rachel and I tried on some wigs. They were too much to handle. Matt and I decided that after I got my tattoo we were going to get wigs and wear them out that night. I then spent a bunch of money on my tattoo, a sweet pair of boots, a wig and sunglasses.

After getting ready for the night, making half the ship crack up, and sharing a cab with a few LLCs (Eddie Diaz and Grant?), Matt and I ended up at a restaurant where we were the only two people in the place. The dinner was delicious and beer was mad cheap. After dinner we ended up at this bar where a bunch of our friends were - which only lasted about an hour before we all migrated to a really awesome, over-packed bar/club with a 60 RMB all you can drink cover charge.

We had really rough seas yesterday. It literally felt like the ship was crashing down on the water. Jackie and I ended up going to bed around 2100, while watching Alice in Wonderland, due to the rockiness of the ship. I woke up around 10:30 today, clearly needing the rest. It’s hard to believe we’ll be in Japan in two days. It’s even harder to believe that the voyage will be over in 26 days. I can’t explain to anyone how much work I have to do.