Nihao Ma!

China---the fun part. Here we go. First of all, Hong Kong is way too expensive to even write about, ad the reason  why I ate chili pepper flakes and a coke for my only meal there. I went up to Victoria’s peak and got an enchanting view of the city with Scott, then we went to a stupid market where they sold the same thing in every stall, but I bought a T-shirt and fulfilled my T-shirt-from-every-country quota The view of Hong Kong at night from our boat was really really beautiful though, and they had this crazy laser light show on the skyscrapers which I watched from the ship. The next day I woke up and pilfered the nearby mall’s free internet for two hours, then hopped in a taxi to the bus station with Vin and his friends (soon to be mine too) Alissa, Kasie and Nina. The bus people freaked us out and told us we were going to miss our flight so we were all on edge during the bus and taxi ride to the airport, and we climbed onto the plane 5 minutes before the gates closed—one of many close calls I have experienced on this trip. The plane ride was amusing. They played a hilarious silent film with cross-dressing Chinese men and women with big long magical braids, and I almost laughed until coconut milk spewed out of my nose. When we got to Beijing, getting a taxi was exasperating. They spoke little to no English to our complete ignorance of any Chinese, and our request to stuff 5 people in one taxi was rudely denied. We got to our hostel, the 1 Hai Inn, after awkwardly wandering down the wrong dark, deserted street with wispy bearded Chinese men on bicycles and white cats curled up on street corners. I LOVE HOSTELS. I could have lived in this one, the people were so nice, the fruit plate was so delicious, and they had free internet! We had our own little 6 person dorm with a bathroom and big comforters and a TV (which we didn’t watch except for a 5 minute clip of a chubby Chinese boy battling a group of middle-aged women). We spent a majority of the night watching our favorite Youtube videos (Look up “The Tree” “Mother’s Day”, “My Son is Gay”, “Jackie and Debra”, or “The Phone Call” to see how we were talking the ENTIRE trip) and cackling gleefully, to the utter befuddlement of our kind hosts. At 2 in the morning, Vin and I went out to find an ATM and ended up in a noisy little restaurant where we ordered tea (using a ridiculous form of sign language) and stifled our amusement at being the only English-speaking people in the entire establishment. This one debonair-looking Chinese man sat at the table next to us, an amused gaze fixed askance at us, with his plate of food untouched in front of his folded hands for the entire time we were there. We felt like quite a spectacle.
 The next day we woke up early and were greeted by the lovely Rita, our tour guide for the next two days. She packed us in a big white van and we drove to the Olympic monuments, where we took the greatest group photographs in the history of group photographs (I will try and put it up soon). Even though all I watched of the Olympic games was synchronized diving, seeing the water cube and bird’s nest still set my heart all a-flutter! After that we visited the 13 Ming tombs, an impressive display of imperial extravagance and architecture. Vin and  I crawled all over the elephant statues and the girls and I fawned over adorable panda-hat wearing toddlers and Rita wowed us with her unending historical wisdom. We proceeded to a Chinese restaurant, where the menu provided enough laughs for the entire week (‘Spiced Jews Ear’ was a favorite of mine).. I really have taken a shine to the use of lazy Susans in this country, they were in every restaurant I ate at and made everything so streamlined---no “Pass the Salt” or “Gimme the chicken” to interrupt the delicious taste of my ‘Hemp-Exploded the Bean Curd’! After gorging myself on awfully-translated Chinese food, Tito (the name we affectionately gave our van driver) took us to the Great Wall. What  a structure! My art history teacher says the Chinese find it to be pure qi, life force,. I see what they mean. It is magnificent, striking, an endless crackle of stone lightning on the mountainside. Climbing onto it I felt through my heels the ripple of history, and even though it was practically vertical, I climbed it with vigor and exhilaration. We managed to catch the sunset over the misty mountains, then climbed down to have dumplings and vegetables and bottle upon bottle of Tsingtao beer with the tour guide and a Chinese family. Lord knows how I managed to climb up the tiny little stairs of the wall, but being up there at night was magical. The stars were made even more sharp and bright with the freezing cold, and the moon dusted the sides of the wall with silvery light.
Waking up the next morning, I was as chipper as a robin, and I scampered all over our guard tower taking photos of my meusli and bananas and the sunrise and the crazy tour guides jogging. It was absolutely arctic out, I am surprised I didn’t get frostbitten. Eight kilometers and about 7,000 burnt calories later, I had seen quite a bit of the Great Wall. That thing is STEEP. My legs are still sore 4 days later. It is really really amazing though, my favorite thing I have seen all semester. I could have walked it for weeks and not gotten tired of it. We got lunch at a little café with Tito and Rita, then headed back to the airport and got on our flight to Shanghai. The last day in Shanghai we went to the zoo and saw a giant panda!! The most adorable animal on Earth. They are only active 2% of the day, and we were lucky enough to see one gallop around his cage. The rest of the zoo was pretty depressing, people throwing cigarettes at hippos and feeding monkeys potato chips…no fun. But that night we saw the Shanghai acrobatics show, an impressive performance of agility, flexibility and card-flicking.
Now I am on the boat, and it is rocking like crazy. My drawers are opening and slamming shut, my alarm clock is falling all over the floor, and my stomach is sloshing and gurgling in disapproval. We arrive in Kobe, Japan tomorrow, sadly the last port that really counts. My plans so far are a Ryokan (traditional Japanese Bed and Breakfast sort of thing) in Kyoto the second night, then 2 nights in a hostel in Tokyo, and we will meet the ship in Yokohama on the last day. My friend Mitzi has family in Tokyo, so I look forward to meeting them and cavorting through the streets of the city. I send everyone my love and affection from the turbulent seas!