To the Terracotta Warriors!

Leaving Beijing was about as natural for me as leaving work on a Friday afternoon. I did absolutely love some of the people I met! My hostel staff was incredible and I had a blast with them.
They were so funny and just loved me haha. Grace, second from left was the only fluent speaker of English and it was music to my ears! Loved her accent. I helped the others with some English. Girl second from right had some attitude that was fun to be around.



I met a guy named Brian at my hostel who had the same sleeper train to Xian so we decided to ride over together. it was nice to have a friend, even if he dropped F Bombs in the weirdest places in his sentences.


Brian and I headed to the drink cart to get some soda and hang out. As we charged our phones we started talking to this guy from LA named Ray. This guy was so interesting. He was on his way to Tibet and Nepal. He is doing a 5 day camp in the mountains of Nepal. He said he has a guide, a cook and a yak. A freaking yak lol!! He is also going to Everest Base camp. Brian is also heading to Tibet and Everest base camp so they did a lot of talking and I did a lot of listening. I kind of wanted to do it too.

This Ray guy had stories you couldn't make up. He spent a few weeks in Jordan and met some locals and ended up staying with them lol. Had some crazy stories about that. Smoked and hung out with them for days.

He was the kind of guy who it seems is like Hansel on Zoolander, meaning of course he is the type who looks at bark and wonders where it came from. Weird but cool dude. Who rents a yak! A yak!! Lol. That is so funny and cool! We talked for hours and hours.


Because of the late night chat with Ray I got no sleep. The sleeper train was loud too. Guy next to me snored and the train was like an amusement park ride at times. Also rank of foot odor. Joy.

Pics from the ride.



Found this in the bathroom... Since when did a western style toilet provide such an entrance? Come on Asia, enough with these stupid squatters!!! Still have not used one lol.


Xian!





Ok, so today was my first ornery day of the trip. Yes I may have disliked Beijing and the crazy people that are found therein but I was never ornery or tired. Today I was a bear waiting to explode it felt like. Honestly, the millions of people at the Beijing Forbidden City tour and now a million more just exhausted me. And because the entertaining late night chat I was dead tired. A yak!!

Other thing is I realized fast Xian was as big of a dump as Beijing, maybe even worse in some places. I was already anxious to leave. I liken it to going into store and realizing immediately you could never buy anything from it, but now you gotta hang around in it for a while. Not being a negative nelly here, for reals... Xian is a dump and is not a pretty place.

Also this tour was through Brian's hostel and the tour guide was so annoying. She would say everything twice and boss us around. Chinese people definitely have some personality. Our tour was also 11 dudes from all over the world. No girls. Some cool, some annoying. One guy took pictures of everything! Even plaques, something the Chinese do a lot of too. So dumb. Some I understand but repeatedly?? It's a plaque telling the history, it's not the history itself!

Not a lot of commentary, just pics of the Terracotta Warriors which were pretty cool. I expected to like this way more. I was just thrilled I had a sleeper train to Shanghai this night. Yep, two sleepers in two nights. Brian told me he was already excited to get out of this F'n country lol.






Destroyed by enemies such as Japanese and the roofs caved in like above.











This is the only warrior that 100% was undamaged when these were found in the 70's or 80's or whenever. Pretty recent though I know.























These are still being repaired. All have had to be repaired but the one.








Still in under repair zone.





Now for the dudes who are completed. This was way cool!






Um, I guess some heads are still missing... But cool eh!? It is the 8th wonder of the world!























This is the farmer who discovered the Terracotta Warriors. I guess this is his day job now...?


My mood changes and now I start to have fun again! Ah yeah.


Lol. This got everyone laughing.


Check out this Italian on my tour. The pant shorts fanny pack look. Sometimes judging is funny haha. This guy was a stud though. The Munich Germany native in the brown shirt talked my ear off the whole day. I nodded and day dreamed away lol.


We then got driven to where an empower was buried. They said he is under that mountain lol. Brian and I were laughing they thought this was interesting. The one dude of course took a million pictures and I almost said, dude let's go it's a freaking hill!!


Again, really?


So ready to go haha.





I did have a blast on the van ride back.





Xian is building literally dozens and dozens of huge new buildings. We were all confused how so many huge apartment buildings could go up. Where are the people now??


I kept waving at other buses and trying to get them to wave for my camera haha.





After intense shopping and bargaining for an iPhone case charger it was time to say goodbye. best purchase I ever made! Got a great deal!

Peace out Xian! Excited to get outta this hole and hopefully enjoy Shanghai!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven and Summer Palace

So glad my day of chilling is over and it's time to see the world famous Tianenmen Square and Forbidden City. Without further adieu...

Can you see the old man doing a Kung fu move? Perfectly timed snapshot.


Tons of people were doing these funny exercises in Tian. Square.






All the communist government buildings. The beautiful smog makes it so clear, yes?


Forbidden City!

Ok, now the history behind this place was very fascinating to me. There were 6 of us in the tour which was great and our tour guide was the best. Her name was Li Li. Such a cute woman.

The history was shocking. It was forbidden to get in the city, but once you got in it was forbidden to leave. Hence the name. The emperor had a wife but also hundreds and hundreds of concubines. Once the women got in they could not leave. Life inside was brutal and harsh. Many of the women would try to kill each other in jealousy and pride. Children of these concubines would kill each other, especially the boys as one would one day be chosen as the heir to the emperor. It was a dangerous place. Many government and high up leaders were embezzling the money the emperor gave them to help the people. No crime ever got caught because everyone was involved. Some emperors were righteous and some so wicked. One dressed up like a commoner and left the city to see what was going on among his people. He was suspicious of what was being reported to him. He was shocked at their condition as some were starving and dirt poor. He actually wanted to stay there as he realized he loved being among the people and hated the palace life. He returned to the forbidden city and beheaded his entire leadership. Everyone lived in fear and wanted out but couldn't leave. Crazy.











These guys were young and cracked me up. Chinese military is everywhere in Beijing, not just at forbidden city.


Inside the first gate.


They play hoops in the forbidden city!


Another one!


Chinese military train here and had shifts here. Hoops provide some R & R. I wanted to hoop it up with them!


Back to the tour. But wow I love basketball.








They repainted a lot of this for the 08 Olympics. Still can't believe this dump of a city hosted those. The history and sites are awesome, everything else bites.


Our tour was first class. Li Li was incredible and I loved her accent.

Now is a good time to interject a picture of her. Her and i talked all day and she is so awesome! She explained to me how hard chinese people work and how little they are paid. They work literally everyday! She is a nurse too and said they get paid half of what american nurses do. She took a break from being a nurse to do tours to improve her english. English is a great way to advance a career in other countries i am learning. Li Li was the best, I love her I think ;)


While I'm at it here is my tour group. One of those ones you become friends with everyone and it gets emotional at good bye. Just kidding about that last part. Cool group though. The one Dutch couple had just visited North Korea and said it was cool and not dangerous at all.


Incredible shot! I never knew there were so many different sections. Should see them in the back. It's huge!


People were everywhere. Saturday's just get packed in Li Li said.














This was a cool rock thing!


My faces are getting silly. I love doing these cause other people watch in such confusion lol.


Huge mote of course.


Some sort of wedding shoot I think. Or modeling. They asked me to pose with these girls, I said I had to continue on with my tour. Pimpin ain't easy.


Part of our tour was meeting with Chinese doctors to try to sell us Chinese medicine. It was cool though. They believe the kidneys are the key. The yin yang and keeps your body in balance. They ripped on how western doctors give medications but don't try to help solve the actual problem. I bought a medication that is suppose to help my blood flow since I have cold hands. I left the medicine in the hostel, geez Trav!





Lunch! I actually like Chinese food in china. I think it gets a bad rap.


Then went to the temple of heaven which was sweet! This row is lined with retired men people playing games. They retire earlier than Americans and there kids help support them. All your guides and people I talked to send money back to there families.





The temple of heaven is the Beijing Chinese character.


Very impressive building.





We then headed to the summer palace. This was the palace one emperice built for herself. She could take a boat from the forbidden city to this. It was ok. Tool seriously forever to get to it cause so many crazy Chinese tourists! I got lost too because stopped to by a wannabe strawberry ice cream.


Long day but a fun tour and I found it more interesting than I thought I would.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone