My adventures of Beijing and Xi'an!!!

We got a 6 day vacation and we decided long ago that we were going to spend the 6 days in Beijing and Xi'an. We left on Thursday afternoon, traffic was bad and we almost missed our train, we made it within seconds, we seem to cut things close a lot-it gives me a heart attack every time. We took a sleeper train to Beijing which was only about 22 hours long! It was so nice! The beds were comfortable and I slept pretty much the whole time. When we got to Beijing it was about 5 PM, we met up with 3 other girls from ILP and we went to Hard Rock Cafe!!! It was so good, I have never seen so many white people here in China! There were so many of them in Beijing! On Saturday we went to Tianemon square and we couldn't see Mao's body because it was closed! Then we went to The Temple of Heaven, The Temple of Heaven is where the emperors made sacrifices-there were a lot of beautiful and very Asian looking buildings. We went to the Forbidden City, I loved the Forbidden City! It was so fun! Mandy slipped on the side of the stairs and fell and cut her elbow, the Asians were concerned and we just laughed, it seems like we are always making a scene. That night we went to an acrobat show-holy cow! These Asians we saw in this show were amazing! They were so flexible and very talented! I couldn't believe all of the stuff they were doing! It was so gross and amazing!
On Sunday we booked a tour with Ben, a very nice Asian, he took us to a part of the Great Wall that is not touristy. We first had to hike a mountain for about 30-45 minutes to get on the Wall, the part of the wall we were on was crumbly and very old, there were trees and bushes growing on the part of the wall we were on! It was only 700-800 years old-not that old Ben said. It was a 4 hour hike on the wall, what a workout, there was a part of the wall where we had to climb it, not walk up the stairs but climb up the stairs, it was so cool! We then checked out the Bird's Nest, where the 2008 Olympics were! We saw that on TV not too long ago! Then we went to the Silk Market-whoa I loved that place, I got Silver Jeans for $15! The Silk Market has about 4 different floors full of random stuff. One floor has silk, another floor has pearls, one floor has jeans and clothes, it is a girls heaven:)
On Monday we went to the China and Beijing museum but everything is closed on Monday because that is their religious day-lame, why can't they do that on Sunday like everyone else!? So we just spent our day spending money at the Silk Market which was very dangerous but very fun! Then we got on a train to Xi'an, we had hard seats for 12 hours-it was torture! I will never ever take a hard seat train again. I didn't sleep at all and everyone was so miserable! Xi'an was a very relaxing trip, we did what we wanted on our time-it was nice and not rushed. We went to the Terracotta Warriors, those were so cool!!!! I couldn't believe it! 2,000 years ago and some were still in tacked! I loved it! That night we went to a light/water show, light and water danced around to music, it was very entertaining! Yesterday we only had time to go to the Drum Tower then got on a plane to go back to our apartment. This trip was amazing and I really want to go back someday to visit all of the places I have missed like the Ming Tombs and the Summer Palace.

Funny story

Ok, these pictures are backwards and I don't know how to flip them around, this is the last picture, so the chicken head in the bottom picture we found in our dinner and Jadie thought it would be funny to take it to our cook, Spencer. She did (picture number 2) and he bit off the neck! We were shocked and grossed out, we didn't know he would do that! Crazy Asians and their chicken heads!

Karaoke Pictures!

These are our awesome awards. The principal is the short one in the middle, the lady next to me is the former principal and I don't know who the end lady is.

Waiting patiently for dinner.

Chinese Karaoke

So tonight was so fun! The principal of the kindergarten we teach at paid for all of her teachers (us Americans and the Chinese teachers) to go to a competition karaoke night. This afternoon we practiced a popular lovey Chinese song-we are pretty good. Then Annie wanted us to sing a popular Britney Spears song! Of course we said yes to that, it brings us back to our childhood! We chose Hit Me Baby One More Time-I remember all of the words and I haven't heard that song for about 5 years now!!! We got to the restaurant and we went into a huge room with a stage and karaoke set up at the front of the room. We got front row seats! We had dinner and a show, we were entertained by about 60 Chinese teachers. These Asians are crazy with karaoke-it is a new side of them we have never seen before. Dinner was pretty delicious, less fishy than other meals we have had. While we were eating everyone was singing and they wanted us to sing Hit Me Baby One More Time even though that was our competition song and the competition was not going to start until after dinner! So we sang it and it was a big hit! We sang pretty well! When we were done with dinner the competition started, it is really hard to pay attention when you don't know what ANYONE is saying. We were number 15 on the list, it took forever to get to us it felt like. All of the songs the Asians were singing all sounded the same! Very high pitch and loud. We got up and sang our Chinese song-I think they were shocked we knew that song! They all sang it with us! We thought we were done but they wanted us to sing Hit Me Baby One More Time again! So we did, it wasn't very good that time, we started too early then we were off. They still loved it though! After we sang they gave us an award for singing and a water bottle-haha it was so cute of them and our award looks very official! I love these Asians we work with! Even though we don't understand a word they say we still have so much fun with them! I had so much fun tonight, we are definitely taken care of here in China!

Look how long my hair is, this Asian was really nice and friendly.

Getting my hair washed! It feels so nice!

This picture was taken after church, this is our "way to humid face."

Eventful week

This past week was pretty good, it started out a little rocky, my package that my mom sent about 30 days ago never made it to me, I was bummed out about that, but don't worry, a couple of days ago Annie (the Asian that helps us) informed me that they found my package! It was a happy day! I love getting packages even though you can never trust the mailing system here. Yesterday we went to church to take the sacrament at the other ILP group's apartment. We haven't been to church for about 8 weeks now-it felt nice to go even though it is weird having church in an apartment. I miss going to church, I have taken it for granted, China has really taught me a lot about what I really do enjoy but never think about when I'm at home. I miss walking around with no shoes on, I miss carpet, I miss soft couches/beds and a whole bunch of things I can think about daily. Today was an eventful day! We walked all over town about 2 or 3 miles!!! Jadie is getting her wedding dress made here, so we picked up Jadie's wedding dress pictures to take to the lady who is making the dress. Then we went to the DVD store-we are really big fans of the DVD store, we love our movies! Then the best part of our day was getting our head massage!!! Mandy and Emily didn't want to go because they were too tired so it was only me and Jadie who went. It was amazing! They massage our heads for about 30 minutes then they do our hair! I feel bad for the person who did my hair because my hair is curly and it never straightens because of the humidity. Hair salons are weird here, the girls, there are some guys, wash our hair and then there are these older Asian males with long fingernails and button down shirts to show off their hairless chests do our hair. My hair is getting so long! I didn't realize how long my hair was until they straightened it! I'm glad Jadie and I got our head massaged today-it felt good. Thanks for reading my Blog! I will try to update it as much as possible!

Easter Day Pictures

My American food!!!

Look how good it is!

Our sweet rolls-they were yummy.

Our Easter baskets-we loved the Easter bunny visiting us.