China!!

I haven't written in a long time. And boy has life changed! But really, my intent for writing is to document my travels. I've been very blessed in life, and I want to make sure to have these memories forever. I started October 8th like every other Saturday... hiking. Yeah, that is what my life has become. I love my outdoors! After hiking for 6 miles, I headed home to shower and grab my bags. I was going to spend the day in Santa Monica to clear the nerves. I shopped a little at the promenade before heading to the pier to people watch. I watched and observed, listened to some fantastic live music, and just enjoyed my surroundings. When I had enough, I decided to call my mom to vent my freak out about a 13 hour flight. Yeah, I had anxiety...bad. But there was excitement too. I walked from Santa Monica Pier to Venice Beach so I could have dinner with friends at C&O Trattoria. They have the best Salmon bowtie pasta with a vodka sauce to die for. Their bread is pretty incredible too! We ate all we could, then decided we needed to let ice cream seap through all that food. So we headed to Diddy Riese to get our ice cream cookie sandwiches. I boarded my flight at 1am to head to Beijing, China. It was my first international flight and I was scared as hell. I took it like a champ though! None of us had seats together and I had a middle seat but luckily there was a family that wanted to sit together so I traded for an aisle seat. Dinner was served. It was beef and rice. It was an alright meal...for 2am food. I watched the tv show me that we had flown over NorCal, Anchorage, Crater Mountain, and Norton Sound. After dinner I decided to try to sleep. I slept for 8 hours. Thank heavens. When I woke up, we were flying over Russia. I couldn't find anything on the TV's or for movies, so I just watched our flight on the screen, anticipating our landing in Beijing. Breakfast was Duck and rice on the plane. It tasted almost the same as the beef and rice. But when you've been on your flight for ten hours, you shut up and eat. The plane landed at 5am. We got thru immigration and customs at 7am and headed to the hotel. Our guide, JoJo, pointed out the airport as we left. The airport is built as a dragon, in resemblance of the king. The parking lot is built as a turtle, which is supposed to resemble the prime minister. Our first day in Beijing...which was actually October 10th since we lost a day... was a free day. We decided not to sit around so we had another tour guide meet us at the hotel at 8am to go see this city. We walked to the train station and the first thing we saw was a McDonalds. I laughed at how many McDonalds and Pizza Hut's China had. And they were always right by each other! We got to learn the bus system and headed to the Hutongs. The things I observed on our walk were... lots of people rode mopeds there. There was a lot of laundry hanging out on lines in the alleys. Lots of people had pets outside in the alley...lots of bird cages, rabbit cages, etc. When we arrived at the Hutongs, the first thing we learned was about the communal bathrooms. Most houses were 1 bedroom and 1 living room and no bathrooms. They were communal bathrooms. And there weren't stalls. No toilet paper. It was an open room with holes in the ground. Yup, we got to squat. I learned really fast why Chinese people are so thin. They don't eat or drink anything cuz who wants to use those bathrooms?! At least that is what I did... I'd start drinking water about the time I knew we were headed back to the hotel so I could use a western style toilet. I saw a lot of uniformed men in the streets. They didn't seem to have a purpose..just standing around. Obviously there was a language barrier so I couldn't understand what they were saying and if it was business or personal conversations, but the mood was relaxed and there didn't seem to be any intent on getting anything done. Our first stop in the Hutongs was to a local families house. The coolest thing about the houses were that most had beautiful courtyards. Odd that we were sitting outside a bedroom window to relax. And all that was in the bedroom was a bed and dresser. Very small room. But the courtyard was beautiful. There were a lot of plants and statues and it was a relaxing place to be. We learned about Chinese arts there. We learned about the masks worn in performances and what the colors represented (courage, power, etc), what the expressions represented, and how they dramatize features so that anyone at a performance...even those in the nose bleed seats, can see the expressions on the mask and know what the characters role is. Then we painted our own masks. I'm not artist...and mine didn't look great. But it was fun. When we got done painting masks, the local family cooked us dinner. Wow, I've never had such good food. Everything was so uniquely flavored and the flavors were intense. We had a lot of chicken. And I actually liked it. Usually I whine at the site of chicken. Give me beef over chicken every day of the week! But it was good. We also had dumplings, cabbage, rice, boiled peanuts, and it was all family style. We ate til we couldn't eat anymore. Walking through the Hutongs, we learned of the beams above the doors. Families have zero, two or four beams based on their social class. It is determined by the emperor based on your contributions to society. If you donate a lot, you will have four beams and be considered a higher social class. I joked that I would just put my own beams up and Gloria told me that the emperor would likely have me killed. haha...maybe I wouldn't put up my own beams! Gloria told us that a lot of people wish they had courtyards. If you have a courtyard, you can grow vegetables. There is just no space in China, which is why you are only allowed one kid and have to pay a penalty to the government if you have more than one kid. We took a rickshaw tour next. They are the bikes that have the small carriages on the back. It cost us $1.50. It was a good opportunity to observe. The streets of China are filled with markets. Every house has something in front of it...fruits, veggies, homemade goods, homemade food... anything they can sell on their doorsteps. Next we headed to the home of the famous cricket man. You read that right...the cricket fighter. He was so proud that he was on the cover of U.S. magazines. He raises crickets and teaches them to fight. He was so animated and you could definitely see his love for his crickets. He has all kinds of cricket gadgets...everything from tools to pick them up, to tiny watering bowls and food bowls, disciplining tools, and containers that will magnify the "music" they make. I don't love creatures that creep or crawl but I did hold his bearded dragon and his huge grasshoppers that were about the size of my thumb. It was all disgusting.... I cave to peer pressure, obviously. We made a stop at the convenient store next for ice cream. I got a Viennetta bar. Yummy! I love how light their ice cream is. No tummy aches when you eat it cuz it isn't as sugary. We walked to the drum tower next. They made us tea. I drank more tea this day than I had up to this point in my life. I mean, every house gave us a cup of tea and they say it is rude not to drink it. But if you drank it, they just kept filling your cup up with more. The difference is...the tea at the Drum Tower was sooo good!. We had Oolong Ginseng, Jasmine, Pu'Er Tea which was black, Lychee Black, and Fruit Tea. The fruit tea was naturally so sweet that it tasted like juice. And the Lychee tea was naturally just a bit sweet. It was my favorite. Not the herby flavor of the rest of the teas...just nice subtle flavor. The lady making our tea pulled a stunt during our tea time. She took cold water and poured it over this boy statue and said the water was too cold. She heated it up more, poured it over the boy again, and he peed!! We called him the pee boy. And I sure did buy that lil tea gadget. We couldn't stop laughing. I felt like our tea tasting was a legit tea party. The cups were so lil bitty. It was cute. Adult tea party time! The bell and drum tower face each other and they were the official time pieces of Beijing until 1924. We took pictures are that bell tower and drum tower and then decided to part ways with our tour guide and go off on our own. We headed to the Summer Palace. What a place! The entire grounds were incredible. I could have walked there for hours and hours. The statues, the architecture, the landscaping..it was all so beautiful. The painting of every archway or hall was so detailed and unique. Everything was so bright and vibrant. I loved the lily ponds all over. The lily padys were HUGE. There were no blooms, but it was still cool to see them stretch for miles and miles in the lake. Of course, the lake surrounding this place was all the excitement for this water loving girl! The sun set over a bridge at the palace. It was gorgeous. I couldn't stop taking pictures. Of course...a bridge usually means water so bridges are my favorite! We walked and walked all night and still didn't cover all the grounds of the palace. The grounds were just stunning. We ended the night at a Japanese restaurant on the way back to our hotel. And there you have it. Day 1 in China.