Sunday, April 30, 2017

Pingyao Ancient City

We took the metro this morning over to the bullet train station and headed straight to Pingyao!
Turns out the Pingyao Ancient City Train Station is not near the ancient city.  So aboard a bus we hopped, hoping it would take us close to our hostel.

We soon learned that we would not be able to reach our hostel by bus.  For apparently, there are no vehicles allowed in the city walls unless you live there!  So it turned out to be a bit of a walk, but we enjoyed it!


We made it to our hostel... and I don't know if I can even say it was a hostel!  It was GORGEOUS!  It was called a guesthouse, actually, and though it was the price of a hostel, it was clean and cultural, and probably one of my favorite places I've stayed here in China (that's right - it competes with the Toy Story Hotel!)

It was a small room, so it was super hard to get pictures.  But I tried just for you!



The room was cool and traditional, but it was the courtyard that just took my breath away.


We spent the next hour or so trying to source an ATM.  Oh my gosh what a pain.  We can only use certain ATMs, but usually ICBC or the Bank of China is on every corner.  Of course not in the ancient city, though, where nothing has really changed over the past 1000 years!  We didn't think about that soon enough, so after checking into our hostel we had to walk all the way out of the city wall to an ICBC.... which didn't have an ATM.  So we walked to an ICBC a mile away... which also didn't have an ATM!  Luckily at the latter ICBC, there were workers that were able to help us out.  Turns out the machines were just different than what we were used to, but could still spit out money if used correctly.  So basically, we could have used the first ATM and actually didn't have to walk a mile.

You can guess how Bailey and I felt by that point.  Having spent most of the day so far on trains and buses, then getting to our destination only having to leave and walk in the hot humidity.  And much further than we needed to!  I wanted to lay on the sidewalk and cry because I was so frustrated!  It was already 2:30 and we hadn't seen anything!  Not to mention, we had finally been able to buy tickets to our airport city for tomorrow, and they were for a much earlier time than we wanted.  Thinking about having only half a day for this beautiful city was so upsetting!  Especially when we paid so much to get here!

Traveling is not as glamourous as it looks, my friends.  Of course it is always worth it and fun in the end, but there are so many moments of stress and anxiety that I'm assuming most travelers have.  Things don't always go right, sometimes your phone can't load anything so you're completely lost, sometimes you really can't communicate at all with the person you want to buy noodles from so you have to walk away, sometimes you waste money, sometimes you HAVE to take it easy and rest when you are exhausted in the middle of the day, and sometimes, like we learned in Changsha, you even miss trains!  Traveling just can't always go smoothly and, as a perfectionist, I'm working hard on accepting that.  I think most of us just assume that traveling goes the way we see it on Istagram or whatever.  But, realizing that I can call myself a traveler, I now see that we just don't put the hard parts on our Instagrams.  Because in the end it doesn't matter!  In the end you never regret the money you spent or the struggles you had, because the experiences and memories you have are so worth it.  Also, a picture of me about to cry outside an ICBC in the middle of a random street where all we hear around us are people saying "Waiguoren!  Waiguoren!" (foreigners, foreigners!) probably wouldn't be that cute.

So, I didn't lay on the sidewalk.  Babies pee on sidewalks through their split pants, so I figured it wasn't a good idea.  If Bailey was being grumpy, I probably would have.  But he decided to have a good attitude and that made all the difference.  Soon enough we were laughing as we walked back towards the city wall!  Also helpful were the ice cold Sprites we found and bought.  Ice cold generally isn't a thing here.

Finally we had time to explore.  We decided to forego the pass that would get us into all of the scenic areas, just because we knew we wouldn't have time to see everything that we wanted to.  Instead we just hit the backroads and thought about the history of the city.  Apparently it is as old as Rome!
The backroads were so interesting!  There was hardly anyone there except for the people that lived there.  Like I said, not much has changed in the last 1000 years.  I just couldn't believe that people still live... so anciently!




As we walked along the city wall, sometimes we would see tourists up on it.  We laughed as a local sold water to people on the wall... via clothesline!


We did the backroads for the length of the south wall, then found ourselves in the major tourist area.  Holy cow, so many people!  After being along on the backroads, it was kind of a shock to suddenly be surrounded by such a crowd.  I didn't actually expect such a crowd, but it ended up being kind of fun walking through the touristy streets.  It was your typical Chinese tourist setup: food vendors, fake antique markets, and fun little shops.  We are a sucker for those fun little shops!

Bailey bought us both little chickies so that we could be true Chinese tourists.  Along with our strawberries and cream popsicles, we really fit the part!


We wandered and wandered for a period of time.  There were some cool gates and guys on horses to be seen!






We also found some DELICIOUS noodles.  They're all handmade here so they are extra good!  I loved the thick noodles soaked in some sort of vinaigarette dressing.  With shredded cucumber on top of course!  We also got some beef noodle soup which turned out to be quite tasty.

Maybe we should have bought the pass, because by then we had seen everything you could see without the pass.  By then we didn't really care, though, and decided to take some time to relax at our cool hotel.  Yes, we took another long nap!  In fact, we didn't get up until sunset!

At sunset we went and bought some more beef noodle soup because we liked it so much and were hungry again.  We also tried a new dish on accident.  We pointed to a noodle dish that we wanted to try, and they totally brought out the wrong thing.  Not wanting to waste 14 kuai, we ate it, suspicious the whole time that it was some sort of animal's stomach lining.  That is what it looked like at least.  We decided not to ask anyone until after we finished the dish (it tasted really good!)  We asked a younger worker and she used google translate to tell us what it was.  Funny thing is, she had it set to translate to Spanish!  Close enough, though, and we were able to understand by the end that it was just a cold noodle dish.  We felt both relieved and disappointed.

We wandered a little bit more through the streets, where vendors were closing up shop.  We went to a part of the wall a bit away from people to try to get a cool picture.  Definitely didn't work, but it was still fun!





A day of vacation always has to end with ice cream, according to me!  Tonight though, I ordered "crispy chicken leg".


Back to the guesthouse it was for us!  The pathway was lined with beautiful lit lanterns!


We spent some of our evening in the courtyard.  It was quiet and so peaceful.  I felt like we were in a different time!  I loved just being there and enjoying the place with my husband.


Saturday, April 29, 2017

Terracotta Warriors (& More Dead Goats)

This morning we got up and headed straight to the bakery for breakfast.  Believe it or not, China has the best bakeries!  We got some little crescent rolls which we ate right away, and also a loaf of whole wheat bread to save for a later snack.


From there it was off to the train station!  We walked there, and thought about how interesting it was that we could so casually walk along the ancient city wall.  China is the coolest!

We got in a crazy long line for the bus that would take us to the Terra Cotta Warriors.  Luckily it was constantly moving, it was as if they had an unlimited amount of buses!

After getting there and making a scene over the fact that Chinese students get discount tickets but American students do not (Bailey was so mad!), we made it in and to the warriors!  Well, we tried to at least.  We accidently went to pit 2 first, which consists of a whole lot of things... all buried under mounds of dirt.


We made our way through the pits, of course liking Pit 1 most because it is the one with all of the warriors.




I don't know.  I hate to say it, but I'm really not impressed with seeing the warriors.  I thought I would appreciate it more my second time seeing them, but it is such a... distant experience.  I mean, we can only see them from above, and from far away too.  A better setup would be at the same level as the warriors.  Then we could really get a sense of how life sized they are.  But I suppose we do see more from an above angle.  I feel bad to say so, but it is really not that magnificent of a sight!  Of course I'm glad we went, though, because Bailey shouldn't leave China without seeing them!



We didn't spend much time at the exhibit, and soon found our way back to the railway station.  We stopped by the foot of our apartment, where we had noticed a mostly hidden Muslim noodle restaurant.  Oh how I love Muslim noodles!  I wanted to eat there and man, it was good.


Before we ate, the cook came and sat down next to me, pointing to my camera.  I thought he wanted a picture with us, so I handed the camera to Bailey so he could snap one.  Turns out he just wanted to see the pictures I had taken of his restaurant, but I'm glad we have this picture anyway!


With still some daylight left, we thought about the places we could visit.  Pagodas, temples, gardens, you know.  The usual China stuff.  Not to say every pagoda is the same, or that they aren't beautiful, but we weren't really feeling it today!  We decided we could live without those Xian sights, and headed to what we really wanted... which was more goat meat.


We did again exactly what we did last night!  Less snacks, though, because we had just eaten dinner.  Bailey munched on his dead goat and I couldn't resist more rolled ice cream.  We visited the alley market again and bought more fun things!


Having seen the major sights, we market Xian off of our list tonight.  We turned in early to get plenty of rest for tomorrow's adventures!

Friday, April 28, 2017

City Walls & Dead Goats

Last night we booked it to the long distance train station to catch our hard sleepers to Xian!

We didn't have to book it if we actually knew what we were doing.  We went on the slow bus to get to the station, took our time eating McDonalds (they have these spicy chicken patties here that are so delicious!  I wish they had them in America!)  We thought we knew where we were going, so we got up and started walking to where we thought we were supposed to be, planning to get there right on time, but when we made it to security, the lady shook her head no and pointed to some characters on our ticket.  I immediately started FREAKING out because our train was in about 10 minutes!  Ah!  I have anxiety just thinking about it!

We didn't know what she was saying, we thought maybe we were at the wrong train station all together.  Greatest blessing of our trip so far came in the form of an English speaking native (which is pretty rare in Changzhou), who overheard the struggle and quickly told us that we were at the wrong plaza.  Turns out, the bullet train plaza is separate from the slow train plaza.  And we'd only taken bullet trains so far so we didn't know!

We didn't know where the "south plaza" was, but we BOOKED IT there!  We probably could have won some track meets with those sprints!  We stopped and asked several people along the way, and made it to our destination with the help of several people pointing towards where we should be.  Turns out, we needed to be right next to the McDonalds we had been at just a few moments earlier.  The two plazas are super far apart!  Definitely a 10 minute walk, so we couldn't have made it if we didn't run.  Another blessing: the train was delayed about 10 minutes.  That actually never happens, trains here are super punctual.  So we had time to spare, and even double check that we were in the right place.  We really felt like Heavenly Father was looking out for us that evening!

Oh sleeper trains.  They're just a little bit ghetto (the bathrooms, though, are SUPER ghetto.  I only needed to use them once, though, because when you know you are going on a sleeper you definitely stop drinking as much water.) but for the price, and for the comfort of laying down, they are so worth it.  We got on around 5:45 and had plenty of time to kill before the lights went out at 10!  I mostly slept because there's not much else to do.  And not much room to do anything anyway, we couldn't even sit up!



This morning we awoke with everyone else at 6:30 when all of the lights came on.  I changed my clothes under the covers because I'm really not sure what else I could have done in a compartment full of old Chinese men and women.  I definitely wasn't going to risk my clothes falling on the bathroom floor!

We went straight to our Airbnb which was some guy's apartment.  I love Airbnb and experiencing local living situations!  It was nice to drop off our bags and freshen up just a little bit before taking on Xian's City Wall.

This isn't my first time to Xian.  Going several years ago, I LOVED biking on the City Wall.  So, I decided that we would have to do just that today!


To spice up the experience, Bailey and I got a tandem bike.  I love the freedom of single bikes, but it turns out that the tandem bike lifestyle is better.  1. Because you can actually have conversations while biking 2. I never had to steer so I got to see a whole lot without crashing!  And 3. If you stop pedaling, your husband won't even notice!  Of course I helped out most of the time, but sometimes a nice break was in order.



We had so much fun biking!  We stopped once for the few shops that are on the wall (and I'm glad there are so few, most of the wall is scenic and reconstructed to be just how it was anciently!) and another time for some overpriced smoothies.  They looked so refreshing, and thank goodness they were since we paid so much!


We read online that the average time it takes to bike the wall is 2.5-3 hours, but the bike rental is only for 2 hours unless you want to pay extra fees.  Tricky, right?  Bailey and I were determined to make it back in time, just to show them!  And we did with 3 minutes to spare!  The fast pedaling of the latter portion of our trip wiped us out, so we took a little break on the wall to eat some lime flavored nori.  Delicious!


We love traveling with friends, but sometimes it is good to go just us, because we can go at our own pace.  After the wall, we went to Miniso then to our apartment to take a nap.  A NAP!  A past Madi would have fainted at the idea of taking a nap on the first day of vacation!  But, today's Madi cared that Bailey didn't get much sleep last night.  And, I want our vacation to be somewhat leisurely considering it is our anniversary trip!  We snuggled up and got a nice hour of sleep before getting up for our next adventure!

It was about dinner time by that point, so we went to the Muslim Quarter where we heard we could find great food.  And we sure did!  Well, first we got some noodles which were subpar.  But then we tried the meat on sticks!  Oh my goodness, those meat sticks!  Sketchiest thing ever.  Who knows how long those dead goats have been hanging out there?!



When you live in China, though, sketchy food can't bother you.  We tried the goat sticks and LOVED them!


Bailey also tried a Chinese "hamburger" (finely chopped meat shoved in pita bread).  Despite the crock pot present at the scene, it still had that very distinct Chinese flavor.  Not my favorite.



Bailey and I just eat our way through vacations!  By the time the night was over I had bought this cool spiraly stick of potato chip(s?), some quail eggs on sticks, and my favorite, rolled ice cream.





Bailey bought a popsicle which we decided was just frozen Sprite!


But I guess we didn't JUST eat.  We also found the back alley markets!  I bought some knock off Ray Bans (I accidently wore my sunglasses in the water while snorkeling in Mexico.... so they were pretty rusty and finally broke earlier today!) and we found some fun things to bring back for Bailey's nieces.

One of my favorite finds of the night is this windchime which I definitely will be keeping.  10 kuai!