Home from China

It was such a fabulous trip! I ate some amazing food (and some really weird crap, the strangest being: jellyfish, duck beak, duck stomach, eels (not so weird, but I'd never had them this way), chicken feet, fish eye, whole shrimp (head, shell, tail, everything), and rat). The trip was just long enough for me to get homesick and ready to be coming home. I can't believe how inexpensive things are! I brought way too much money (so that's a good problem), and I got a lot of loot for friends and family. I took over 1000 pictures- still workig on uploading those to facebook- and have a ton of stories. The temples are beautiful, people are friendly if they have a reason to be, and rude if they don't know you, I heard a ton of propaganda from officials I met with (I was working too, not just sightseeing), and had a funny incident in the subway:

It was the last day of the tour and we had broken down into groups of people who were going to the same place- my group was only 5 and we were all headed to the airport- I was headed home, 2 were off to Hong Kong, and 2 were off to their family's home somewhere in the south. We had caught a train in from Nanjing to Shanghai, and decided to take the subway from the train station to the airport  since it was raining. The other people with me was my interpreter and her son (my former student), and two other boys who were meeting their parents in Hong Kong. So my interpreter had never actually used the subway system before, and I am very familiar and comfortable using the subway, but I don't read Chinese. She read to me what was on the map and I figured out how to get there, so we were armed with a plan and marched off to the platform we needed. The boys had a basketball with them and were jacking around with it the whole time, so they were always lagging behind us. We reached the platform for our train, Hillary and I step on board and we're shouting at the three boys to hurry because the doors will close soon. They finally bother to pick up their bags when the alarm chimes and the doors slide shut. We were all staring at each other open mouthed in total shock and as the train slowly pulled away one of the boys sadly waved bye bye. Hillary is still standing mouth agape when I said "call your son, tell him to meet us at People's Square". She said no, let's get off at the next station. I told her they won't know to do that. If anything, they'll figure it out and meet us at the airport- two of the boys can read Chinese and they know that's where we're headed. I told her to call her son again and she said Oh yeah, as if I hadn't already mentioned it. She called, told them to change at People's Square and we'd meet them on the platform. Predictably, it was fine. The boys aren't stupid and they got out at People's Square, then we all changed trains together for the second leg to the airport. We laughed about it so much, especially the waving bye bye. It cracks me up just typing this! (The boys also stuck much closer to us after that.)

My favorite part of the trip has to be the visit to the Great Wall. Forbidden City was cool, all the temples and palaces and things were awesome, seeing Confucious's burial mound and temple were so cool, the sleeper train (think Indiana Jones--Lost Ark-- and picture the train they're on toward the end-- that's what we had and it was probably just as old), the food, everything was good, but the Great Wall was tops. It's one of those things I never thought I'd do and I did. The views are breathtaking, and luckily we had a really nice day for it, clear skies and not overly hot. It was only about 90, and very little humidity, a strong breeze, so it was totally comfortable. We took a cable car up to the starting point, walked a hellishly steep incline up to some stairs that threatened to make my heart pop as I climbed them, but then we reached the goal- the highest point on the great wall is at 888m, and we made it. We had a choice of walking back down to the cable car to take us down the rest of the way, or we could walk down. No way was I planning on walking all the way down, so I followed my interpreter who confidently said, "Come this way! This is the way to the cable car." (Foolishly, I believed her and followed.) A grueling mile and change later, my knees were swollen beyond recognition, my ankles were all puffed up too, and I was sweaty, sticky, thirtsy, tired, and really happy that I'd climbed the Great Wall, Badaling section anyway, and made it down without the help of a cable car. I got the best pictures and had a really unique experience. The stairs were uneven, short, and in some cases, so steep that when standing on the precipice you can't even SEE some of the stairs below you. It's like being on a rollercoaster that you walk. There were some ramps too- these super steep slopes that you can literally crawl up (I think this may count as bouldering, climbers) or slide down. We managed to do it in one piece. My knees paid for it badly though. The next day I was beyond sore and swollen, but had no choice about staying in the hotel to rest. We had touring to do! I did get a traditional Manchurian foot massage (I hate being touched by strangers, and I HATE my feet being touched by anyone, but this time it was worth it) and felt better that evening. They have squat toilets in China, and they turned out to be not so horrible. Not wonderful, but totally doable. With my knees swollen up so badly I actually could squat far enough down to pee. It made for an interesting restroom experience for a day and a half.

My sleep schedule is all jacktarded. I can't go to bed before like 5AM, and I'm waking up around 1 in the afternoon. Gee I love summer, with no real resppnsibility. :) Tonight I am baking a cheesecake for my friend Edina, who is ravenous for one. I owe her, since she picked my ass up at the airport at 1AM the other day. Tomorrow she comes over to see pics and get gifts from me. I bought so much crap, but realized that I bought almost nothing for myself. That's ok because a) I got to go on the trip, b) I have a ton of pictures and c) we set things up with a couple schools for next year and we'll be going back to Nanjing, Hong Kong and the southern parts of China, rather than the Northern parts that we did this year. Great trip, but I'm thrilled to be back. Nothing like USA.