China!

The Amazing Race.
Ever seen the television show?? Well that pretty much sums up our China experience. We arrived in Hong Kong on Thursday and the only set plans we had was a plane ticket from Guang Zou (sp?), a town outside Hong Kong to Beijing. (It’s cheaper to fly from there than Hong Kong) We pretty much depended on a train getting us from Hong Kong to Guang Zou on Friday to catch our afternoon flight, but when we checked the train station on Thursday we found that there were no tickets left. For this and all of our other mishaps along the way, we blamed the crappy Internet on the ship that makes it impossible to book things in advance. Anyways, we were left with no choice but to catch the train that night to Guang Zou, sadly leaving us without a night to spend in Hong Kong. We also decided it would be a good idea to check on the availability of the sleeper trains from Beijing to Shanghai, where we were supposed to meet the ship on Monday. Surprise, surprise… the sleeper train was "sold out" (we later found they just lie to tourists and if you hassle them enough they can "find room."), so we were left with no choice but to buy a plane ticket to get ourselves from Beijing to Shangai, figuring it’s pretty important we didn’t miss the ship’s departure for Kobe, Japan. We finally got everything figured out with our transportation, which wasted most of the day we had to spend in Hong Kong. Very frustrated, we went back to the ship to pack for Beijing, eat dinner, and head to the train station for our trip to Guang Zou. The train was an interesting experience; some guy behind us from Saudi Arabia named Doogi had a mad crush on Tessa and kept telling us that we had to go to this bar, The Cellar. We arrived there with no hotel reservations around 9 p.m. and luckily the train station had a tourist counter where we found a cheap hotel and transportation to the airport the next morning. It was our friend, Katie’s 21st birthday, so we all went to a street recommended to us by the hotel… and ironically enough, we found ourselves at none other than, The Cellar! We go inside and sure enough, Doogi is there with a private table and all of his friends yelling for Tessa and all of us to hang out with him.
Our group headed to the airport the next morning around 10 a.m. to catch our 1 o’clock flight to Beijing. The airports were extremely nice everywhere we went. Pretty much all of them were new, as China has built something like 100 new airports in the last few years, or something crazy like that. (again, I apologize for the rough stats… you wouldn’t believe the crazy amount of numbers and weird facts fed to us) Anyways, we arrived in Beijing around 5, picked a random hostel from the Internet that sounded like it had a good location (walking distance of the Forbidden City), and prayed that they had space. We arrived on the sketchy street of our hostel, having no idea where it was. We were showed the way down a scary ally way and my first reaction was, there is no way we are staying here. The hostel was surprisingly awesome once you entered its small doors. It was a courtyard set up, owned by a 40-year-old retired man who spoke great English, and had just opened the hostel for fun in January. He obviously had tons of money because of the great location and the fact that the hostel was so new. They made great food, had free Internet, and sold 3 yuan beers (that’s less than $.50!!) Needless to say, we picked a great place. It was very small, but lucky us, they had room for the first two nights we were in Beijing.
They had warned us on the ship that hardly anyone in Beijing will speak English… well that was definitely true! We haven’t had very many problems so far communicating with the people until we came to China. Usually there is at least one person in restaurants or tourist places that can come up to help, but not so in China. One of the biggest dilemmas by far was the taxi rides. It is so difficult to even pronounce Mandarin, not to mention that if it is in characters you have no idea what it says. At least in the other countries we could try to read menus and sound out the language, but it’s pretty difficult when it comes to Mandarin. The first night at dinner we took a menu and just pointed to pictures of things that looked good and played charades to order, really having no clue what we were ordering. When I talked to Dad as we were getting ready to leave Shanghai he asked "You didn’t eat dog, did you?" All I can say is, God, I hope not!
The first full day in Beijing was spent traveling to and visiting the Great Wall. The morning started around 5 a.m. and it was about a 3 and a half our drive to the spot where we hiked the Great Wall. Being hard-headed young people, we thought hiking up it rather than taking the cable car would be a piece of cake. Well, the whole thing was a little more difficult than we anticipated. After walking around and taking pictures for about 2 hours, we decided to take the cable car down and meet our group for lunch. We headed back to Beijing, got ready for dinner, ate some awesome sushi, and headed for bed. Brittany, Dylan, Jess, Tessa and I spent the next day doing some sight-seeing around Beijing and ate lunch at Tim’s Texas BBQ restaurant. Yup, that’s right… so sick of Asian food, we found the one restaurant in China that had something to do with Texas and were thrilled to eat there! I got a chopped beef sandwich and beans and it was Heaven! If only they had queso… you have no idea the withdrawals I am going through!
The next day we headed to the airport to catch our morning flight back to Shanghai. The ship was supposed to have been to Shanghai by 8 that morning, but due to fog it didn’t arrive until that evening at 6. Since the ship had to clear customs, we didn’t get on until around 8 p.m. The last thing we wanted to do was lug our huge backpacks around with us in Shanghai until the ship came back so we just hung close and waited in the cold to get on. China was by far the coldest country we’ve gone to, averaging a high of 60. Everyone was so annoyed that the ship was late since most people had plans of dropping their stuff off and going to shop and sightsee in Shanghai. This dilemma just added to the madness we experienced throughout our tour of China. We put off our shopping adventure until the next day, which was our last day in port. Jess, Dylan and I got up early to hit the market and had a hell of a time trying to get a taxi to take us there. After hailing cabs and being rejected for about 30 minutes, we begged a security guard to speak to the driver and he told him to take us. We’re not sure if it was because the market was "close" (20 minute cab ride away), or if it was because we were tourists, but it was extremely annoying. After finally arriving to the market, it didn’t take long for us to run out of money. Jess and I made a pact not to let each other go back to the ATM, although it was extremely tempting, considering you could buy any designer jean, purse, sunglasses, watch, and jacket you ever wanted. I bought quite a few good gifts and a few somethings for myself. I bought the entire 6 season set of the show 24 for only $25. This is to entertain us as we have quite a few days at sea to get back to Miami.
Overall, we feel like we did a pretty good job in China not knowing a single word and not having a plan. It wasn’t really the way I like to travel, but it was a great experience. I have learned a lot when it comes to traveling: be sure you are with a really good group that you really get along with, travel in small groups of no more than 4… you can’t all fit in a cab, and try to pick people with the same interests- there’s a big difference if all you can afford is McDonald’s and the person you’re traveling with has more money than God to spend on food. We are really excited about going to Japan. We bought our bullet train rail passes in China, and plan to head to Tokyo the first day. We are going to Tokyo Disney, a baseball game, and then off to Kyoto and Osaka for a night, then back to Kobe to meet the ship. After Japan we have 8 days at sea until arriving in Honolulu for only a day. It’s great being so busy, but I have a feeling after Japan we will be glad to have the much-needed break. Planes, trains, and automobiles, and living out of a backpack are starting to get old and I’m glad I don’t have to go to another airport until flying home to Dallas. After Hawaii is 10 days at sea, and during this time is our final exams, then to Costa Rica for two days where we are zip-lining through the rain forests! Until next time. Xoxo Marissa.