China was amazing! It definitely surpassed my expectations! When I think vacation, a beautiful beach comes to mind. I figured China wouldn't be that much different from Korea. However, it was more than an incredible experience.
We checked in and were brought to our room by Nana (one of the girls at the front desk). The hostel was amazing. So nice. On a downside, we didn't have our own bathroom, but the community bathroom was really nice. After putting our stuff down, we went to knock on Melissa and Lauren's door. We decided to get ready, have dinner and drinks in the bar/restaurant of the hostel and then go out somewhere.
When we got out of the cab, a woman ushered us into this bar. It was DEAD. We got a drink there. They were trying to play English music for us. One of the songs: The Titanic theme song... we got out of there pretty fast. The next bar we went into had a live band. They were soooo good. They performed everything from Lady Gaga to Madonna to Sublime to Tom Petty. It was great. We stayed there for the rest of the night. The band at the bar we went to.
The next day we went to The Great Wall. We decided to go to the Mutianyu section of The Great Wall because it looked beautiful and it had a toboggan way down! Sweet! We did it on our own instead of taking a tour at 6am. (Thanks again to Lauren, Melissa and Emma. I know I had no idea where I was going the entire time.) We took the subway to the bus to a taxi to get there. The taxi driver stayed at the wall the whole time and waited for us to come back down. SO NICE. We definitely would have been stranded there. There was NO ONE there. It was incredible. I was worried we would be surrounded by other tourists, but it was so serene. On the way up, we saw a bunch of cats. Of course I ran over to them and had a little love fest before going up. I wish I could have taken them all home. I wish I could find stray cats in Korea. Every time I say that here people are shocked. Apparently they are everywhere. I guess they just elude me. Oh well. Their loss! Haha.
We took a cable car up to the wall. It was so beautiful. We walked (stopping to take pictures often) for around 2.5 hours. We couldn’t believe we were up there for that long! It was so cold. I am not exaggerating. It was below freezing. We walked down instead of taking the cable car. It was so much walking that our legs were shaking. When we got down we met the cab driver and headed back out. View from the cable car.
Peek a Boo!
Looking lonely.
Friend to the rescue.
That night was Lunar New Year and we all got dressed up to go back out to the same area we went to the night before. We were going to get pecking duck for dinner, but everything was closed or full already. We decided we would just eat and drink at the hostel again before going out.
Chinese Beef and Broccoli
We were so tired, but forced ourselves into thinking we would go out because it was New Years and we were in China! We ended up meeting some guys at the hostel and started hanging out with them. A few were from Miami (I can’t believe they made it all the way to China), a few from California and a few from England. We played some drinking games and decided to just stay at the hostel. After some time, fireworks started going off (they were going off all day but they really started picking up). We went outside and realized that the hostel was setting them off. There were TONS of fireworks. My friend Leor who lived in Seoul and then Beijing told me that every Lunar New Year people die and buildings burn to the ground because it is so crazy. He did not over exaggerate. They were lighting fireworks off 5 feet from the front of the building. I am used to running at least 20 yards away. They were SO loud too. Some crazy, and probably drunk, Chinese people were walking and dancing so close to the fireworks. They would hold on to the ones that burst out flames and swing them around. This went on for hours. We would go outside for a little bit, then back in and drink more and then back outside. As I got drunker, I got more courage. Naturally, I ended up getting my own explosives and lighting them. I was standing in the midst of it all taking videos. I have burn holes in my jacket from how close I was… It was worth every bit of footage.
Chinese Beef and Broccoli
We were so tired, but forced ourselves into thinking we would go out because it was New Years and we were in China! We ended up meeting some guys at the hostel and started hanging out with them. A few were from Miami (I can’t believe they made it all the way to China), a few from California and a few from England. We played some drinking games and decided to just stay at the hostel. After some time, fireworks started going off (they were going off all day but they really started picking up). We went outside and realized that the hostel was setting them off. There were TONS of fireworks. My friend Leor who lived in Seoul and then Beijing told me that every Lunar New Year people die and buildings burn to the ground because it is so crazy. He did not over exaggerate. They were lighting fireworks off 5 feet from the front of the building. I am used to running at least 20 yards away. They were SO loud too. Some crazy, and probably drunk, Chinese people were walking and dancing so close to the fireworks. They would hold on to the ones that burst out flames and swing them around. This went on for hours. We would go outside for a little bit, then back in and drink more and then back outside. As I got drunker, I got more courage. Naturally, I ended up getting my own explosives and lighting them. I was standing in the midst of it all taking videos. I have burn holes in my jacket from how close I was… It was worth every bit of footage.
The next day, we had lunch at a Chinese place down the street. The fried rice that Emma got was soooo good. We also got peas, two different kinds of chicken and sweet and sour pork. It was really good, and I was glad to get out of our hostel for a meal!
From there we walked around the Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was crazy to be standing where the Tiananmen Square Massacre happened. I wish I would have had the courage to ask a Chinese person what they thought of it, but I didn’t. As you all know, China is a communist country. It was weird enough just being there. There were cameras EVERYWHERE.
Facebook, gmail, twitter, youtube, etc. are blocked from the people there. At our hostel, they hacked the internet so we could use it. It reminded me of using proxys in high school to get onto myspace. Anyway, my point is that I don’t know how the Chinese people feel about the massacre, if they know about it, or how they would respond if I asked. Part of me wishes I would have, but I know if I go back I still won’t.
Facebook, gmail, twitter, youtube, etc. are blocked from the people there. At our hostel, they hacked the internet so we could use it. It reminded me of using proxys in high school to get onto myspace. Anyway, my point is that I don’t know how the Chinese people feel about the massacre, if they know about it, or how they would respond if I asked. Part of me wishes I would have, but I know if I go back I still won’t.
Next, we decided to go to the pearl market. Unfortunately it was closed for the New Year. L We hung out before heading back to the hostel. We ran into the boys earlier that day and decided to get pecking duck together later that night. There was a place next door that looked really good and the staff recommended it. They wouldn’t let us in or make a reservation, so we told them we had a group of 20 and they finally took us. They put us up stairs in a private room. On the way in everyone stared at us. There were no foreigners in there. Actually, the whole trip all the Chinese people started at us and took pictures and videos of us. It was quite entertaining.
I don’t know if they don’t see foreigners that much or if we were just that good looking. ;-) I digress. We sat around a large round table with spinning glass. One of the boys lived in Shanghai, so he did the ordering. One of the many things we got was bullfrog. I was excited to try this. Unfortunately, I didn’t like it that much. It was in a stew and it was very spicy. It was also cut up in chunks but had too many bones to really enjoy. Next time I try bullfrog, I want a leg. The duck was decent. I don’t know. I guess I expected more after all the raving about pecking duck. To me, it just tasted like duck. It was good, but nothing special. Maybe I didn’t get it from the right place. That night we drank downstairs again and then Joe (the guy from Shanghai) got all of us to go to this club. It was super ghetto. Haha. It must have been a foreigner bar too. They got VIP and we were at a table upstairs. At one point Lauren and I decided to go to the bathroom. While we were looking we walked past some (I am pretty sure they were some sort of African… probably from Ghana or Nigeria… something like that. I only say this from my experiences in Itaewon) guys who grabbed us. It wasn’t the normal inappropriate grab. They wouldn’t let go. One of them bear hugged Lauren. I was trying to pry her out of his arms but he WOULDN’T let go. I had never experienced anything like this. Now there are 2 sides to this story. First I will tell you mine and then what actually happened. J In my story I got Lauren free and we ran. Miriam = superhero. Lauren mentioned something which I thought was “Camron threw a drink on them.” I never saw any of the boys down there. I thought she meant from above or something. I don’t know. When we got back upstairs to the table, I remember getting splashed with a drink and then there was somewhat of a fight or something happening. I just hid in the corner and ignored it. That is my story. Now what really happened: I guess while I was trying to break Lauren free, two of the boys were watching from upstairs and ran down to help us. I never saw them (of course) and they were the ones who got us out of there. While we were in the bathroom the boys went back up stairs and the other guys that grabbed us kept looking up at them and punching their fist into their hands. They then threw a drink up at us and came up and there was security and shit. Typical club shit I guess. It was just pretty weird and I felt pretty scared of these guys. Lauren said they looked at her and punched their fists into their hands too. What creeps. Other than that, the night at the club was a lot of fun.
The next day we had lunch, did a little souvenir shopping and headed to the airport. Long story short, we ended up missing our flight home and had to stay and extra night in China. I was super nervous because Emma and I were going to miss a day of work. We felt really bad. We went back to the hostel and spent another night there. Had a few drinks with the boys and went back the next day.
Work has been ok. I wasn’t fired. I was seriously nervous about everything. I have never missed an international flight and I have never had to miss work before.
Since I have been back, I found a group of guys to play soccer with. They are a bunch of Korean men ranging from like 25-50. Haha. They play on Saturdays at 9am which sucks! They play till like 12/1. I don’t know what I expected, but the first day was not it. I set my alarm for PM. Great. I was supposed to meet this guy who goes by Tiger at the subway. I woke up to his phone calls. He said he would meet me closer to my place. When I met him he was in a car. I figured we were taking the subway. As there is virtually no crime in Korea (the little crime that there is is usually caused by foreigners), I got in the car with him. We drove out like 30 min. When we got there it was a full field. The guys were in uniforms and there were referees. What did I get myself into? What happened to 5v5 Sunday night soccer in Seoul? I played with them and wasn’t too bad. I hadn’t played full field soccer in like 4 years. Afterwards, we ate at this authentic restaurant. We had fish soup and makgeolli. Oh yea, since I have been in Korea I realize it is completely normal for guys to smoke cigarettes on the sidelines at half time. Ha. Weirddd. Tiger told me to get the car with a different Korean on the way home. He would drop me off because he was going that way. This guy didn’t speak any English. On the way I am pretty sure we picked up hitch hikers. I was just the weird foreigner in the front who no one could talk to and had no idea what was going on. It was pretty comical.
The other day I went to a potluck with my friend Andrew. It was a lot of fun and I met a lot of cool people. They have a potluck every Thursday, and I am going to start attending now. A couple of the girls there invited me to have dinner with them Friday night. I went and it was a lot of fun. I am happy I am getting out there a little more and meeting some other people. I look forward to continue going on Thursdays. This Thursday will be my birthday. I am going to bring tacos. J
