Beijing Day 2 Part 2 北京第二天，第二部分

After the Forbidden City we were invited to dinner by fairly well-off Chinese factory owners. We had our own private room for dinner and had a glass wall to view the performances in the main hall. The dinner was full of mirth and laughter. Many jokes about Chinese people and foreigners alike. After dinner we were taken to the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest to be touristy! It was a lot of fun. Took many silly photos (see below). Soon after they whisked us off to Beijing's best bar (Mix) that is owned by one of the factory owner's friends. It was a lot of fun, and even better that other people were treating us.

(Puppet performance at the restaurant, telling the story of the courting of two lovers.)

(BIRD'S NEST!)

(Water Cube! Dragon Ball Z pose.)

don't worry a more serious post to follow ^.^

Beijing Day 2 (Forbidden City) 北京第二天 (故宫）

请从下面开始读。Start reading from the bottom!

Unfortunately the Forbidden City is too amazing and all too beautiful to describe with words. So this blog post will be picture and caption oriented! I hope you enjoy it regardless of its lack of text! I had a great time here, and if you ever have a chance to visit Beijing, go!



(One of the seats for the Emperor, just for watching Peiking Opera.)

(Ceremonial crown of the Emperor it weighs 2kg. Which is like 5 pounds-ish.)

(Alleyway in the Forbidden City, long long long!)

(View from the main buildings from a less important courtyard, can you see the smog?)

(With our tour guide. English name: Aleen.)

(Dragon wall, the maker of this wall was only given a limited time by one of the Emperors. Right before the completion date one of the ceramic slabs fell off. Painted wood replicas replaced it, luckily the Emperor didn't find out or it would have been off with the craftman's head!)

(Bedroom of the Dowager Empress, Suxi [su-shi] or Dragon Lady. She ruled for 48 years.)

(An interesting doorway in one of the courtyards that housed the concubines.)

(Beautiful gate coming out of one of the courtyards that housed some of the Emperor's concubines. I think one of thos children in the background is sneaking a picture of me!)

(The back garden. Located behind all the buildings that were used for official business. Here the Emperor and people who were allowed in could stroll around the garden. The last emperor to live in the Forbidden City was the first to begin learning English, he was also the first to ride a bike. His English name was Henry. His wife? Elizabeth.)

(Throne room where all the official business went down!)

(These dragon heads served as gutters, in Ancient China it was believed that dragons breathed water. When it was raining the Emperor would come outside to admire these fountain heads that doubled as gutters. This is all according to our English/Chinese speaking tour guide we hired for 200 yuan.)

(Voila! The Forbidden City! Breathtaking!)

(In front of one of the buildings used for formal ceremonies such as announcing imperial exam results, throwing banquets for officials, etc. From left to right: Diego (from Brazil, also live in Chongqing), Me, and Ms. Ma. The hall behind us is called the Hall of Supreme Harmony. 太和门 tai-huh-men)

(Through one of the gates in the city, note the cieling!)

(After breakfast of beef noodles, we walked a 5-10 minute walk to the entrance of the Forbidden City! I was super excited and my hunger was quelled!)

Beijing Day 1 北京欢迎你 第一天

(Our hotel room! That's Diego the Brazilian behind me!)

(the entrance to the forbidden city, located in front of Tian'anmen Square!)

(后海 [ho-high] bar street)

(Ah! I almost died when I saw this dog being pushed along in a stroller, I had to take its picture. It reminded me of my own dog, Molly, back home.)

(One of the most famous Beijing 烤鸭 [kao-ya] roasted duck places. very very tasty!)

(The entrance to the forbidden city at sunset.)

Day One: Beijing

Our flight to Beijing was the scariest flight I have ever partaken in while being in China. Hainan Airlines, beware of the red and yellow logo that is Hainan Airlines. We left Chongqing in the early afternoon. As we were taking off I couldn't help but notice that the plane kept tipping from one side to another quite rapidly. The Chinese people on the plane were looking a bit anxious, and you know something is super scary if the Chinese start to flip out. We never really stabilized until the plane got to cruising altitude. The crew blamed turbulence...but I am not so easily decieved!

(The landing was just as scary, and the overhead compartments looked as though they were about to fall down, yeesh!).

Once we arrived and collected our baggage we headed out of the terminal only to be greeted by a friend of a friend of a friend in his Infiniti SUV to take us to our hotel (北京饭店 The Beijing Hotel). We were very fortunate to have such good friends on this trip. [My AFS coordinator (Ms. Ma) accompanied Diego (my Brazilian friend) and me to go to Beijing, but she also invited her friend Lulu and Taotao (who are a couple). It just so happens that Taotao is very rich and owns a cement factory. He is very kind and has a good sense of humor. He also PAID for our hotel, which would normally cost more than 1000yuan each night, and is a 5 star hotel. We weren't planning on staying in such an expensive hotel...but Ms. Ma informed us shortly before we left that for 3 nights we wouldn't have to worry about the hotel bill. However the last night we stayed in a significantly cheaper hotel because Taotao and Lulu returned to Chongqing.]

The Beijing Hotel is where Nixon stayed when he visited China way back when. We put our stuff in our rooms and relaxed for a few minutes then Ms. Ma fetched us to go see Tian'anmen Square.

Our hotel was only about an eight minutes walk from the square and we got there just as the sun was setting. After snapping a few photos the police shoved the crowd out of the way so they could begin the flag lowering ceremony as the sun finished setting. We stood in the windy coldness for about 20 minutes and nothing happened so we walked across the street to meet my British friend Benjamin (who also happened to be spending some time away from Chongqing in Beijing before he went home to visit the UK).

It took ages to find a taxi willing to get us near to this famous Beijing roast duck restaurant! It was worth it though, in the end we had our own room, my AFS friend Carina from Germany joined us (she lives in Beijing with a host family). What I really liked about the restaurant was its location. It's located in an old Beijing style courtyard house（四合院儿 si-huh-yu'ar literally: four harmony courtyard). These houses are slowly disappearing to accomidate apartment buildings, some are being preserved though. The feel was very "old Beijing." Courtyard houses were the houses not too long ago in Beijing.

Carina went home, and we sauntered on down to 后海 Houhai [say:ho-high] a famous bar street along a lake in Beijing. The name means back-sea. Ms. Ma left us because she was not feeling well so Ben, Diego, and I popped into a more laid-back sofa-ish bar, listened to a man and a woman sing karaoke. They sang pretty well, then I realized that they must have been hired by the bar to entertain because they were the only ones singing. Kerry (another Brit) joined us and we chatted about our upcoming travel plans during this month long holiday for Chinese New Years.

Later we took a taxi back to the hotel. The next day Lulu and Taotao (our sponsors in a certain sense) would arrive, plus we needed sleep since we planned to get up early and see the Forbidden City.

Yunnan Trip 云南旅游（从下面开始读）

READ FROM THE BOTTOM UP PLEASE :) 请从下面开始读这篇文章 :)


(Fields on the drive back to Dali from Lijiang. A four hour drive with amazing views! So green!)

(A man dressed in one of the ethnic minority's costumes.)

(One of the rivulets/canals in the ancient section of Lijiang, in the background is 雪山 [shu'eh-shan] Snow Mountain.)

(A tree-lined street in the ancient part of Lijiang. Throughout the ancient part of Lijiang there are many little streams and rivulets that run along the streets. Usually you can see fish in the water, it was the cleanest water I have seen so far.)

(Hearts for sale in a butcher shop. I don't know of what animal, maybe pig?)

(One of the minorities here in Lijiang is the LAST in the world to still draw pictures for their writing. If you look closely at the sign to the right you can see the little pictures. They are called 东巴 [dong-ba] characters.)

(We took a train from Dali to Lijiang. Lijiang means beautiful river. We stayed in the ancient part of Lijiang. This hanging wooden votives have people's wishes and prayers written on them. When you walk by them or walk under them you are supposed to run your hand along the planks to ring the bells. I made one!)

(View of the mountains at sunrise from outside my hotel room in Dali.)

(The ancient town/street of Dali. Dali is the hippie capital of China. I have no idea why, maybe because it is kind of in the middle of nowhere and the weather is fair. We saw a few hippies. My other American friend was followed by a shady Chinese man that said she was beautiful. So we Americans banded together and protected her! Everything was fine in the end. The street is really nice for an evening walk.)

(When I bargained with the employees at the tie-dye store they always asked this lady if the price was okay. She was kind of like the floor manager. She had denchers. One of the Chinese AFS chaperones exclaimed "Wow! You're teeth are so nice!" She smiled and told us the truth. Apparently having teeth is a big deal for old people, especially those in the countryside.)

(Some of the dyed cloth hanging in the courtyard of the tie-dye shop.)

(A tie-dye store in Dali. For some reason Chinese tour group destinations usually have a catch: they want you to buy something!)

(View towards the 洱海 [ar-hai] lake in Dali. This morning was spent in the town of Dali. I really like Dali!)

(View towards the mountains from the upper levels of the replica house.)

(In one of the courtyards of the replica house they served us 3 different kinds of tea and danced for us. Bitter tea, sweet tea, and memory tea which was cinnamon. In the end just about everyone was dancing on the stage.)

(Next morning we were taken to a REPLICA of an old Chinese residence. Even though it was just an eight year old replica it was still really nice. The views from the upper floors were quite nice. It also doubled as a hotel... Sometimes these stops just felt like advertisements.)

(Part of our dinner that evening was crickets and maggots...or grubs I couldn't tell. And I definitely didn't eat them. The smell was making me gag already. From what I heard they didn't have taste, but the texture is a different story.)

(The rock forest, if I heard correctly used to be a giant lake. Many pointy rocks that you can now walk through. If you take a wrong turn you ccould be lost for at least three days. That's what our tour guide said at least. After looking at this picture it seems plausible.)

(A lady and her child dressed in traditional clothing belonging to a minority that lives in the province of Yunnan, this picture was taken in the 石林 [shur-leen] rock forest.)

(Coming out of a dinning hall that day this lady tried to sell us some little trinkets. As you can see there were many others like her. I do like how they were dressed though. This is what one of the local minorities wears. China has 56 ethnic minorities.)

(Me being silly infront of the entrance to the little gazebo on the cliff.)

(One of the first sights we saw on the second day in Yunnan. The first day was just a traveling day so we didn't see any sights. This park is pretty, except everything is fabricated. the next photo was taken atop that cliff.)

New Year's Day 元旦

(kitty in the kitchen)

(we got one of these roosters as a gift when we left the farm)

(Mao lurking on the wall of their bedroom)

(Chongqing's countryside in winter)

(a view of the house from the main courtyard, I took this when we had just arrived)

After getting seven hours of sleep I was woken up at nine o'clock in the morning and taken by my host family to the countryside of Chongqing, about one hour away from the city center. Luckily I fell asleep in the car! In the car all I knew was that we were going to visit some friends at their parent's farm. I didn't know when we were coming back or what we were to do there besides eat. Meanwhile outside it is -6C (21.2F) and overcast. Most of my warm clothes are back at home sitting in the washer. I still hadn't washed them yet after coming back from Shanghai.

The placed where we stopped the car did not even look like a village. It looked like a row of houses along several muddy fields. The houses were on high ground above the fields, and across the fields was another shorter row of houses. Some of the houses had a pee-yellow tile facade while others were just plain red brick. Bright white geese were milling about in the brown muddy fields occasionally squawking to themselves.

A tan man greeted us, chatting in rapid Chongqing dialect and led us to the main courtyard of the farmhouse pictured above. My stomach was a bit upset from the bumpy roads so I mostly spent the time sitting and watching my host brother and his cousin play badminton with my host mother.

The food we had was incredibly though! I have never had such good Chinese food in my whole life! The table was made of metal and had a small stove inside so the surface was warm to the touch. What a relief, I have been so cold here lately. I was asked a lot of questions about life in Los Angeles at this point, how many people made up my family, the differences between American school and Chinese school, how much my dad makes, whether my mom works etc. Most of the time the room went silent as if everyone was hanging on every word I said.

Following lunch all the adults went into the dirt-floored living room to watch television. The TV was the only modern thing I saw in the whole house. It looked out of place. To heat themselves there were cast-iron bowls filled with ashes and hot coals laid at their feet.

I ventured outside and found my host mom and my host aunt giving badminton advice to my host brother and host cousin. After about a half an hour we started getting ready to leave. But I needed to use the bathroom...I was pointed to a dark room off the barn. Little did I know that the bathroom was also the pig sty.