Summer Palace

Today was our last full day in Beijing, but we were both still pretty tired from hiking on the Great Wall yesterday, so we decided to have a leisurely morning in the hotel and then head to the Summer Palace for the afternoon.

It was sad to leave the Ritz Carlton - I miss it already haha. But after we checked out, we went to a Japanese noodle restaurant for lunch. (I had miso soup, curry pork, and some chocolate covered/stuffed frozen strawberries - all very delicous) From there, we caught a taxi and headed to the Summer Palace, which was a good 45 minutes away.

Unlike most of the cab drivers we've encountered, this guy was actually really friendly and tried really hard to chat with us in English for a while. Of course, this turned out to be all a ploy to get us to hire him to be our guide/interpreter for the day...sigh. The constant pushy sales tactics here geared for tourists are really off-putting. In fact, as I got out of the taxi at the Summer Palace, I was immediately accosted by three men trying to sell me souveniers - one even put a souvenier hat on my head and tried to make me buy it!

Anyway, upon first impression, the Summer Palace didn't seem like anything too special. But boy was I wrong! It turns out that it is this HUGE park filled with amazing structures, trees that are hundreds of years old, ancient ruins, and a gigantic lake! It was definately a highlight of our trip so far. I especially liked the parts of the grounds that had all of these awesome pagoda like structures built into the side of a rocky mountain that we actually got to hike and climb. I think I somehow wandered someplace I wasn't supposed to also and ended up surrounded by these treacherous ruins of former structures that were destroyed during the anglo-french invasion, on this cliff overlooking a snow/ice filled riverbed. There was nobody else there, and it was just the perfect chance to spend some time out in nature. It made me really happy :) It was sort of an oasis from the craziness that is happening all around it in Beijing.

Unfortunately, Katie and I had our first big fight today, and it was a real doozie! While normally I wouldn't describe myself as the most macho of guys, every once in a while I guess I get a big burst of testosterone or something that makes me want to do really manly things like paint houses, watch sports, drink beer, and build things. And it turns out that today was one of those days. As soon as I saw all the rocks and hills and ruins, I became like a 7 year old boy and just wanted to run around and play on them - and I did. This made Katie pretty mad :(

In reality, we've both just spent too much time together during the past week so little things are starting to get on each other's nerves. Plus, I'm sure that the culture shock isn't helping either. Eh...we were bound to fight eventually haha.

Anyway, after we were done with that, we had a few more taxi adventures while trying to find a place to eat dinner and ended up only having time to quickly grab some McDonalds. Then we headed to the airport and took our flight (which was delayed for 2 hours) to Shanghai.

The flight was pretty nice (and short) and a woman and little girl sat next to me that spoke decent English and wanted to chat with me, which was a delight and definately helped pass the time.

Our hotel in Shanghai is pretty nice, but it definately isn't the Ritz Carlton haha. Actually, it almost wasn't even our hotel, since the taxi driver accidentally dropped us off at a totally different hotel haha.

Tomorrow, we will explore Shanghai (seperately) and I hope it will be a really fun day. Here are some pictures of the Summer Palace:

Country Road, Take Me Home...

I woke up this morning and was thinking about how cool it was to go to the Great Wall yesterday. I also was thinking of all of the quite country roads that we drove on to get there and it made me think about how nice it would be to live in a quiet place like that. People were riding their bicycles everywhere and there were children playing and dogs barking and a feeling of general happiness in the faces of the people we passed.

It seems that no matter how old I get, I still can not balance my desire to lead a quiet and simple life like that or to have a super stressful and successful career. Even now, when I have found what I think to be the perfect career for me and am quite happy with how things are going in my life, there's still a huge part of me that just wants to pack up and go be a farmer on my friend's green tea farm in Japan. I really wish I could just take a peek about 25 years into the future and see which path I finally end up choosing, so I could just go ahead and do it now and stop always feeling so conflicted about it haha.

Sigh...

Good News!

Today marks day 7 that Katie and I have spent together on our trip, and we haven't killed each other yet!! In fact, we have been getting along quite well and haven't even had our first big fight yet. (we almost had a little one on Tuesday night, but I think we both quickly realized it would have been a bad idea.) When we are at work and we get on each other's nerves, we can just close the door between our two offices, but since we are sharing the same hotel rooms here, closing the door only keeps us together longer haha.

Beijing, Day 2: Great Wall MADNESS!!!

Today was quite an adventure!! We booked a private car/driver and English speaking tour guide last night to take us to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall today. We thought we booked it for a great price, but boy did we end up paying for it today!!

Our guide "Sofie" picked us up at our hotel around 10am and took us to the car parked across the street. We should have known when we saw the light blue piece of crap 1970s car that this was a bad idea. But, we decided to be brave and got in anyway. (FYI, the seats were lined with floral patio furniture cushions!)

Once we got in the car, our guide made small talk with us (Katie wanted no part of that), but it was quickly evident that "English speaking" really meant only that she had memorized a few key facts about Beijing in English. Oh well - no big deal. We told her that we wanted to go to Mutianyu and to the Ming Tombs (which she arranged last night), but she said that first we would go to some Jade gallery and then to Mutianyu, and then to the Ming Tombs only if there is time.

We were a little annoyed by this, since we figured that the Jade gallery was going to be some tourist trap where foreigners were heavily pressured to buy overpriced souveniers - and we were totally right! We arrived at the gallery and were told that she had arranged for us to have a special English speaking guide. However, this really meant that we had an English speaking sales woman. I was a good sport though and listened to the sales pitch and browsed around for a bit before telling our guide that we were ready to go. BUT....

When we told her that we wanted to go, she said "No. You can't go yet." WHAT??? I asked for clarification and she told us to keep shopping and that the car wouldn't be back for another 35 minutes. (This was a lie - the car was in the parking lot the whole time) Katie and I didn't quite know what to do - we were basically being held there against our will and attacked by high pressure sales ladies everywhere we turned. We weren't sure if we had to buy something to leave or what was going on.

Finally, after the super long 35 minutes had passed, we went back to our guide and told her again that we wanted to leave. She begrudgingly took us outside of the store and sure enough, there was the car- in the same spot it was before!

Thank goodness - we were finally free!

Anyway, with that adventure over, we were totally skeptical about getting back in the car - but we were kind of in the middle of nowhere and had no choice. So, we got in and headed to the Great Wall.

This would have been fine if the driver didn't drive at like 100mph and if traffic rules actually existed in Beijing. Seriously, driving here is just so crazy that words don't come close to explaining it. Driving is literally like playing a game of frogger, with bikes and people and cars coming at you from all sides. Lanes are also suggestions only too...with upwards of 2.5 cars or more squeezing in to one lane at a time! I was about ready to hurl from car sickness by the time we got there.

But, we finally got there, and boy was it worth it! We told our guide that she could wait in the car, and we headed up to the top. It's really high up, so we had to take this delapidated ski lift to get up there (made complicated by the fact that there were no English directions about what to do). We were pretty sure that we were going to fall off and plummet to our death, but we eventually made it to the top.

Walking along the Great Wall is definately one of the high points of my entire life! It was one of those surreal moments when I had to pause and say "whoa! we are actually standing on the Great Wall of China - how cool is that!!" Parts of the walk were quite a hike - and soo steep! (I put pictures below)

We walked around for about an hour and a half and took lots of pictures, and then had to take a luge down to the bottom! Total count so far of how many times we almost died today:

1. Crazy driver in the death trap of a car
2. Being held captive against our will at the Jade Gallery
3. Almost plummeting off of the ski lift
4. Almost falling on the steep steps of the Great Wall (times 8)
5. Taking the luge of death to bottom

But, we weren't almost dying yet! We still had the drive back! (during which, the car stalled twice, and the battery light kept coming on!)

Our guide at this point told us that there wasn't time to go to the Ming Tombs (which we were totally okay with) but that we could go to see the Olympic buildings. So, we said okay, and our guide took off like a maniac down the highway!! We literally came within inches of hitting small animals, small children, bikes, adults, and many other cars about every 5 minutes. Katie and I just kept looking at each other in pure terror!

Finally, our guide pointed out the Olympic stadium on the side of the highway (which we could barely even see because of the incredible amount of smog and polution in the air) and we thought that was it. BUT no...to our amazement, the driver actually stopped on the side of the highway and made us to get out next to the crazy cars to take pictures! We thought we going to be roadkill!

Anyway, after that near death experience, we told them to just take us home as fast as possible. I've never been so happy to see a hotel in my entire life!!!! (or to be out of a car) We payed the driver and headed inside.

The rest of the night has been pretty low key and has been totally geared at helping us recover from the craziness of the day. We went to a Japanese restaurant and had sushi, went to Starbucks to get coffee, and then came back to the hotel so Katie could get a pedicure and I could go for a swim/steam/sauna/massage. After all that, I feel so relaxed now, and I never want to leave this hotel! The Ritz Carlton is by far the best hotel I've ever stayed at, and if I had my way, I would cancel the rest of our trip plans and just stay here and get massages all day haha!

But, tomorrow, we are heading to the Summer Palace, and then leaving Beijing and heading to Shanghai. Hopefully tomorrow will be less of a harrowing experience than today was!

Here are some pics:

Beijing, Day 1

Today was our first full day in Beijing, and it was a busy day at that! We started off pretty early, since neither of us slept late due to the time difference, and headed downstairs for breakfast. The breakfast at the hotel was so delicious, and consisted of dim sum, pastries, fruits, and western style breakfast items.

Our first stop of the day was the Forbidden City, and it's definately named that for a reason - because it's GIGANTIC like a mini city. We spent several hours wandering around there and checking out all the buildings and gardens. Each building has a name, such as the Hall of Cumulative Purity - but the names seem to have nothing to do with what is actually inside of the buildings. The whole place was amazing, and after walking around for so long there, my feet are killing me!! Oh - one really strange/interesting thing is that several Chinese people actually came up and asked to take pictures WITH me!

After that, we walked to Tianeman Square and took some pictures and got approached by about a zillion tour guides trying to sell us tours to the Great Wall (which we are going to do tomorrow). I didn't mind talking with them, but some of them were annoyingly pushy.

Once we finished there, we searched for a really long time for a place to eat lunch and eventually found a little restaurant a few blocks away. This was our first time eating at a restaurant in the city, so we were both a little nervous. But ultimately, it was totally fine and we ordered without any problems. In fact, the waitresses were all giddy and acting like school girls actually fighting to get to take my order. Apparently I am hot stuff here in China - who knew?!

For lunch, I had a pretty interesting meal:

• rice
• steamed pumpkin cakes
• candied potato wedges
• donkey and scallion stir fry

Yep...I ate DONKEY for lunch!!! It was actually quite tasty too! (It kind of freaked Katie out a little though haha) Lunch made me think of the Donkey from Shrek haha

Once we finished lunch, I had my first terrifying experience in the super gross public restrooms here, and then we took a taxi to the Temple of Heaven. By the time we got there, the temple buildings were already closed, but we were still allowed to go into the huge park and look at the outside of them.

By this point in the day, we were both pretty tired and it was getting quite cold, so this was fine for us. The grounds were amazing and filled with these strange bendy trees, which looked so eerie in the fog/smog. We walked around and saw most of the sights, but as the sun quickly set, we suddenly found ourselves completely in the dark in the spooky woods in China! To be honest, it was more than a little creepy, and we hauled ass to get out of there as quickly as possible, and then took a taxi back to our hotel. The whole thing made me think of the spooky forest from Harry Potter haha.

We are both pretty tired at this point, so I don't know that we'll do too much tonight, but so far, we are having a great time and haven't gotten on each other's nerves too bad yet. Beijing is a cool place so far despite the terrible smog and the traffic rules that seem to be more of suggestions here and make even riding in a taxi a near death experience. In fact, the language barrier hasn't even been that bad!

Anyway, here are some pictures from today:

Christmas in Beijing

I'm in China!!!!

Getting here was quite a journey - 13.5 hours to be exact. And Air China definately didn't impress me either.

At this point in my life, I consider myself to be a seasoned traveller, and I've flown on most of the major transpacific carriers. Because of this, I go into these long haul flights with pretty high expectations - most of which Air China didn't meet. Don't get me wrong, the flight was fine and the food wasn't too bad. It just wasn't great either. There were no tv screens in the back of the seats, which is pretty standard now on flights of this length, and the flight attendents were a little rude at times and were really stingy with the drinks.

I miss Japan Airlines!!!!

It wasn't all bad though: There was a really hot male flight attendant in my section! :)

So, eye candy aside, everything is going pretty well here so far. We went through customs and immigration fine, and made it to our hotel with hardly any problems. Speaking of our hotel, it is freaking amazing!! I've never stayed at a Ritz-Carlton before, but I can easily see what all the hype is about. Some room highlights include:

• All marble bathroom complete with TV
• Frosted glass shower/toilet area that you just have to see to believe
• Huge bathtub with spa kit
• Huge flat screen tv
• The most comfortable bed ever
• Fresh flowers
• Chocolate truffles on the bed
• Curtains that are operated by remote control!

It's just amazing, and will definately be one of the high points of the trip. However, after getting up to the room, it suddenly dawned on me that Katie and I are going to be together basically 24 hours a day for the next two weeks with little to no privacy! I think it'll be fine, but I tend to be a pretty private person, and getting alone time is important to me - so we'll have to see how it goes.

Anyway, tomorrow is our first full day of sight seeing. I can't really remember where it is that we are going exactly, but I'll write about it and post pictures tomorrow night. (the language barrier is already an issue, so tomorrow should be interesting. I keep wanting to speak Japanese to everyone - I really wish I learned more than just how to say hello and thank you in Mandarin haha)

Oh yeah, and it's Christmas here now - so merry Christmas everyone.

Cheers!

Snow, China, and a New Tattoo!

Wow – it’s been a long time since I’ve posted a blog! I have some pretty cool things to share though…

I guess the first piece of excitement is that over the past few days, I’ve seen more snow than I have ever seen in my entire life. We got nearly 2 feet of snow in less than a week!!! Most everything is still covered in a ton of snow and it looks really pretty – but winter doesn’t even officially start until Friday!

The next piece of exciting news is that as of Friday afternoon, I am officially on vacation until January 6th!!! AND, I’m not just wasting the time here in Worcester – I’m going on a 14 day adventure trip to China!!!!!!! I’m traveling with my friend/coworker Katie, and we are going to Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Leshan, Xi’an, and Luoyuang! Best of all, we are staying in the Ritz Carlton while we are there!!!!! I can’t wait!

The final piece of excitement happened today – just a few hours ago to be specific. As those of you that read my blog frequently or know me well know, the past year since I’ve come home from Japan has been really difficult for me. I’ve struggled with everything from depression, to regretting my decision to come home, to confusion over what type of job I should be doing, to dating difficulties, to general unhappiness with several aspects of my life here in Worcester. But, after a lot of reflection and hard work, I can finally say that I’ve made me peace with the whole experience and am in a very good and happy place in my life now.

To bring closure to everything and to mark this milestone in my life, I decided to commemorate the occasion by getting a new tattoo – my 4th and largest. I originally had the appointment scheduled for the actual anniversary date – last Thursday, but it got rescheduled to today because of all the snow last week. My appointment this afternoon lasted nearly 6 hours, and hurt like a ******, but it was all worth it. And the finished product, a half sleeve on my left arm, is totally awesome. Here are some pictures of it. (my arm is still really swollen and red – I’ll post better pictures when it’s all healed up)