West Street, Yangshuo

We got up very early this morning to catch our flight to Guilin. Everything went smoothly, the flight was on time and everything! We had great luck after the flight as well. When buying tickets for the long distance bus from Guilin to Yangshuo, the lady selling the tickets told us that there was actually a private driver about to leave for Yangshuo for a pickup. So for the same price as the bus, we were able to hitch a ride with him, and he even dropped us off on West Street where our hotel was!

Because of that, we made it to Yangshuo much earlier than planned. We checked into our hotel and spent a while walking up and down West Street. West Street is Yangshuo's tourist street, and one of the most fun tourist streets I've been to in China. There is just so much to see and do!

We stopped in all of the little shops (I finally bought myself a silk scarf) and were shocked by the large number of Western restaurants. Actually there were a lot of German restaurants as well - a whole street of them!

We were stopped by a few ladies who were trying to sell us river floating tours. It was something we were interested in, but when one of the ladies told us it was in walking distance, we decided we'd try to find it by ourselves first. So we walked down to the Li River and explored the edge of it a bit.

There wasn't much to see, and our path soon turned into stepping stones. Bailey tried it out and slipped into the water!

It was only ankle deep at that point, but his fall deterred us from going any further. We eventually decided to go to the official tourist center of West Street to inquire about the river rafting. And by then, it was too late in the day and there were no more rafting tours! We should have just stopped there in the first place and saved West Street for later in the day. But I guess we did save money. I've done the river rafting before and enjoyed it, so I feel bad that Bailey and my mom won't have a chance! There wasn't anything we could do about it at that point, so we grabbed some lunch (McDonald's for mom and Bailey, and fried dumplings for me!) and called it a rest day.

It was kind of nice to take it easy! Plus our hotel room had a bath so of course I had to use that (I can't remember the last time I was able to bathe!) I'm not very good at resting, though, so my mom and Bailey each took a turn going out with me to explore a little further.

On mine and Bailey's expedition, we ran into a whole bunch of other ILP teachers. The ones we were most excited to see were Mitch and Katey! We walked around a little bit with them and caught up with each other about our adventures. They showed us one of the best places to eat on the street, which also happened to say "this shop does not welcome Japanese". That was a little shocking!  That place would not survive in the States. Of course they probably would have seen me as the American that I am, and would have served me, but neither Bailey and I wanted to support such a place, haha.

We stopped by a meat stick place where I got quail eggs on a stick, and went in to grab mom to join us for actual dinner.

Dinner was at the weirdest place! We sat down and a German guy brought us about five different menus. A pizza menu, a Thai menu, a German menu, a Western menu, etc. Apparently all of the surrounding restaurants were of the same restaurant so you can sit anywhere and order anything or something. It was super confusing. Also, there was a rat running around the shelves near the ceiling. The food didn't look that great (I'm really just into Chinese food these days) so I just ordered a cheesy baked potato, which was pretty good. I wasn't that hungry anyway, the dumplings from earlier were very filling!

We took a little bit more time after dinner to explore the streets. West Street really comes alive at night!

One thing that is really popular to sell are dresses! Dresses everywhere! I liked how the ladies standing in the middle of the street would wear the dresses they were selling, then we could see what they looked like on. This year's style consists of flutter sleeves and longer lengths (in 2014 the dresses were mostly short and sleeveless) so it was REALLY tempting to buy them all. But, Bailey and I have been doing some serious budgeting and I escaped with just some normal modern Chinese girl style pants and a more traditional looking red top which I actually think may be a dress.

We will sleep well tonight, as our mattresses are Western and our hotel is quiet even though it's right off West Street. Tomorrow is a day we have really been looking forward to!

Museums & Palaces

We got up this morning and went straight to the National Museum of China! We just love museums!

We didn't anticipate just how many people would have the same plan as us. Apparently it is kind of hard to get into the museum, because they only let a certain amount of people in per day, and half of those people must book online in advance. Luckily we were in line early enough, and were actually sent to a shorter line for foreign passport holders. We were in the museum soon enough!

There were some really good exhibits at the museum! Probably my favorite was one of the first we went to, which was a series of GIGANTIC paintings that mostly had to do with World War 2 or the cultural revolution. They were just so big, I can't imagine making such a painting! 

There were a lot of pottery exhibits. It is crazy how old some of the pottery was, even though it looked so new. We saw lots of cool Chinese artifacts as well, including two terra cotta warriors. I was glad to see the warriors at the museum, since we weren't able to take mom to Xian! Now she can still say that she saw the Terracotta Warriors, haha.

One super cool exhibit was a collection of gifts given to Chinese political leaders from other leaders around the world. It was interesting to see what kind of items people chose to represent their country. We liked to find the gifts from America, which were generally easy to spot out. For example, there was a bust of Abraham Lincoln and some Native American statues. There were also some random things from America, like mantelpieces of fish and flowers. 

One random exhibit was of ancient African art. It was random but fun to walk through! What a unique style they had. What we noticed the most in that exhibit is how much they exaggerated certain body parts... how couldn't you notice? We took this picture in a tamer section.

By that time we had only hit a portion of the museum but were feeling ready to move on to our next adventure. So after a quick stop at McDonald's (bless McDonald's for always being there when we need quick food!) we were on our way to The Summer Palace!

I've been to the Summer Palace before, but today we entered in a different gate than I had, so it was completely unfamiliar! The Summer Palace is huge, it is nearly impossible to see it all in one visit, so I was excited to explore a new section. What a beautiful place!

While exploring the Summer Palace grounds, mom bought a hat that she is very excited about.  It is kind of like a stretchy spandex material.  All the moms here have them, and now mine fits right in!

Eventually we reached the longest corridor in the world, which I had walked before. It was beautiful to see the lake beside it.

We walked along the water, eventually making it to the marble boat. We couldn't go on the marble boat, but it surely is a sight to see! Can you imagine being so rich that you could build such a splendid boat that could never actually move?!

After checking out that boat, we hopped on a dragon boat which would take us to the other side of the site.

Pulling away from the dock, we had the most magnificent view of where we had just left from. Chinese architecture is just so unique and cool! I forgot to take a picture though. 

By the time we got to the other side of the lake we decided we were ready for our next adventure. We hopped on a bus then the subway to get to the Temple of Heaven park. We got into the park, but we couldn't get into the actual temple site. We were about a half hour too late! We could see part of the temple over the gate, though, so we were okay.

We really enjoyed the park, and just sat and watched the normal life go on. Like a guy sitting alone, just singing to himself. And three baby birds falling out of a tall tree to their deaths... that was a little confusing and upsetting. We also found a section of the park where there were tons of people playing some variation of badminton, and other people playing the Chinese version of hackey sack! We had to buy a couple of the little feather things off of the people there, the game looked so fun!

We couldn't believe how many people were at the park just exercising after their work day. It was like a rec center, or an outdoor (and more fun) version of a gym! We sat and watched everyone and wished that people were more like that in the States. How fun would it be to get your exercise in during the evening, just socializing and playing games with your neighbors?

Our evening ended with dinner in a food court, where we each got what we wanted for dinner. I opted for Indian food which was delicious. We walked back to our apartment tonight, taking in the sights of Beijing, as we will be leaving early tomorrow morning!

The Forbidden City

This morning we headed straight to Tiananmen Square! Bailey has been so excited to see Tiananmen Square because of all of the political stuff. He was very excited to see Chairman Mao's body... but alas... we found out just today that the building has been and will continue to be closed for maintenance for a few months! So no Mao for us! Sad!

We got to check out the other statues and monuments though. I think these statues are so interesting. I've been reading a book called "Revolution is Not a Dinner Party" which is about a girl who grew up during the cultural revolution. Such messed up times! It's so crazy that the "bad guys" really won in real life. And everything turned out pretty okay in the end, considering. I came here a few years ago, but the experience this time was much better because I actually know more about communism and how it came to be in this country.

After we got our fill of Tiananmen Square, we crossed the street over to the Forbidden City! Such a massive complex!

We entered the first courtyard and immediately strayed off the normal path. We went outside of the courtyard and found a series of exhibits and museums STILL part of the "Forbidden City". It was then that we realized just how much there is to see there. No way we could hit it all in one day! So we checked out some pots, copied the poses from some old ladies, and headed back to the main flow of traffic.

It is crazy how the Palace was more like a city. Like, an emperor could live in the complex his whole life and have everything he needed right there. Not just that, but he would never know the poverty or whatever else was happening outside his palace wall!

It was so crowded!

We visited the Women's Quarters where the empress would live in rooms right next to her husband's concubines. The whole concubine thing is so upsetting to me. I can't believe that was just normal life back in the day, for men to have concubines. It wasn't even just emperors, it was all men who had at least a decent amount of money!

The buildings were a gorgeous sight to see. However, they didn't do so well with displaying what is inside the buildings. Some buildings had small glass windows where you could look in and see poorly dusted thrones or beds or something. It's kind of surprising that they don't dust them or at least light them up better so we can see. It's like the rooms were just locked up, never to be touched again!

We spent quite a while exploring the complex. We were so lucky with the weather, it hasn't been too hot at all! We saw some cool things such as this pot. We didn't know what it was for, and thought maybe they started fires in them? So here is a pic of my mom with the fire pot.

We eventually learned that they actually used to be filled with water in case of a fire! In winter they would start a fire underneath the pot so that it wouldn't freeze.

Here is Bailey fixing my hair for a picture.

Behind the Forbidden City are some beautiful gardens!  They were crowded, but we enjoyed exploring part of them.

After we had had enough of the Forbidden City, we went and found some delicious noodles for lunch! We then went to Jingshan Park. There's not tons to do there except climb up to the top pagoda to see this amazing view of the Forbidden City from above!

We took some time to rest in the park because it was so pretty. We had accomplished today's plans swifter than expected, so we kind of left without a clear idea of what to do.  We were approached by an old guy offering tours of the "old town" via rickshaw. I had done that a few years ago and enjoyed it, so my mom paid for us all to do it!

It was.... kind of weird. First of all, we thought it was going to be much longer considering they charged us 60 kuai each! We learned a couple of things but poor mom was sketched out because she thought we were in the slums and were going to get killed. But Bailey and I were unimpressed because it looks like normal China and like what we are used to haha. It ended up being like 15 minutes and it took us away from where we wanted to be so that was kind of a flop.

But the evening still ended well, as we decided we had time to hit the Pearl Market! We helped mom bargain for a few souvenirs, and finished up some souvenir shopping ourselves. The ladies there weren't as pushy as I remembered. Or maybe I'm just used to it now!

We then went back to our apartment to rest up for tomorrow. Our Airbnb apartment is pretty nice! But to get to it you have to go through some seriously sketchy halls, haha.