Shanghai to Xi'an December 22-27
Thursday-
Woke up and ate my last piece of toast and drank a final cup of tea. Did some last minute packing and did a final check of my room. So we were all supposed to be down in the lobby and on the bus by 9am. My room and one other girl were all down on time and on the bus. Our tour guide in Hong Kong was getting very anxious and was ready to have the bus leave and who ever wasn't there by 9:10 would have to take a taxi to the airport.... Thankfully everybody was in the lobby and getting on the bus by 9:10. Then off to the airport we left.
We got through the airport pretty quickly and my bag didn't get have to be pulled to the side to be checked!! (This is like the first time, I shove so much into my backpack, seriously it could be like Mary Poppins bag) though in all truth I am a bit nervous to open anything cause who knows if it'll shut again. But I swear I always have to be patted down after going through the metal detector thing, I remember the first few times at the beginning of trip I was a bit where'd out and now it's just normal. In Egypt and India there were separate lines for men and women and the women's line always had a enclosed area where we would be metal scanned and have our passport checked.
Plane ride went smoothly we got a meal and the watermelon was super good and at the end of the meal they took our trays and gave us ice cream. I was super excited about this until I saw the flavor was banana cream, I gave mine to Sydney. I don't like banana flavored ice cream, or banana flavored things, except banana bread I love my moms banana bread muffins. The rest of the flight was spent on my end of site reflection.
We got off the airport and met up with our new tour guide and drove to the East China Normal University (ENCU). By this time is was getting dark and after we checked into our dorm rooms at the university, our room smelt weird, but oh well we are only here a few days. We then went to dinner. We ate family style with a bunch of different Chinese dishes, I ate jellyfish....... It was a weird consistency. I still don't know what exactly to think of eating jellyfish. But I ate it and I tried it.
After dinner (8:30pm) we had a hour and a half lecture on contemporary China. It was a good lecture but it got long and some of the facts were a bit weird. But oh well. After we all walked back to the downs and pretty much fell asleep. though I woke up quite a few times during the night because the heater was right above my bed and made ALOT of noise, sometimes I though for sure it was going to fall off the wall and onto me... Thankfully it didn't.
Friday
Woke up and got ready for the day. Went down stairs for breakfast, I ate fried rice and Chinese broccoli. Then I went back upstairs to grab my jacket and my backpack then back down stairs to meet with our tour guide and start the day.
We started out the day at the Shanghai Museum and spent a few hours wandering around looking at bronze works, jade, calligraphy, paintings, and a bunch of other things. It was interesting to see everything but I got a bit tired toward the end of our time at the museum. Next we went to lunch.
After lunch we, Siri, Becca, Kevin, Sophie, Michael, Zozo Pazong and I all wandered around the People's park trying to find a market we were told to go see. We couldn't find the market but we took the metro to another market. We all spent about 2 hours walking around the market and looking at things as well getting lost a few times within the market, it was really big and spread out = very easy to get lost in... I bought two small paintings.
After the market we all kinda split up and did our own thing. Siri and Sophie and I went to the Bund. The Bund is a place you can go to get a nice view of the Shanghai skyline. We went in the evening when it was dark and it was so pretty with all the buildings lit up! After taking many pictures and walking down the boardwalk we found our way back to the metro. First though we found dinner then started the grand journey of figuring out how to get back to the dorms.
We did pretty well finding our way back via the metro system, I have become a semi master, I think, at finding my way around the metro. Once we got off the metro we started walking toward where we thought the University's main entrance was, we took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up taking a longer way back and going through an entirely different gate (which was not marked very well as one of the university entrances). Once we walked through the gate we had absolutely no clue where our dorm was. I ended up asking these three guys for directions, I asked if they knew where the international dorms were and where we were on campus currently. They all looked at each other a laughed a bit and one guy says "there are three dorms". Siri Sophie and I all sighed cause we had no clue what one of the three we were staying in. They circled on a map where the three were and went on their way. So off we went trying to figure out which dorm was ours. as we were walking along we recognized a few landmarks and actually figured out where we were and how to get back. Success!
Once back I got ready for bed and was curious about how far I had walked today. My phone told me I had walked a total of 10 miles! Now I understood why I felt so tired! Haha. I slept quite well!
Saturday (Christmas Eve)
Woke up on the earlier side for touring, we had a big day ahead. Also it's Christmas Eve today. Got ready for the day and went to breakfast had a very similar breakfast to yesterday's, rice and a veggie. Went back up to my room to grab my backpack and my jacket then off to the bus.
Today we are visiting two gardens. We drove an hour to the first garden, the Humble Administrators Garden. One of our lectures back in Hong Kong was on gardens and this garden was mentioned by our professor. The garden was Huge and very pretty. There are four main elements that make for a "good garden": water, rocks, the buildings and the plants. So our tour guide pointed out all these elements as we walked around. I enjoyed this garden but I really liked the next garden we went to. When I was walking out of the garden my mom and dad called to wish me a merry Christmas. It was nice to talk with them, they both were just sitting down to start the movie Christmas Vacation, a family tradition we all watch this movie.
After the first garden it was time for lunch. We go to eat a a place that served traditional dim sum. We had 16 courses of food.... Each course consisted of enough dumplings or food so that each of the four people sitting at the table could have one piece, which was perfect but still a ton of food! One of my favorites was this black dumpling that I learned had been colored black with the use of octopus ink. I loved a lot of the courses but another that stood out to me was a spicy sticky rice ball. I have a special love for sticky rice, I grew up with my mom making it every once in a while. My favorite thing beside eating it for dinner was taking it for a school snack the next day! Haha. It makes for pretty great snack food. :)
After the big lunch we went to the second garden which was the Lion's Grove, a garden of pretty much all rocks! Both of these gardens were in the town of Suzhou. Then you first walk into the garden you are surrounded by rocks, so many rocks! So of course we all ended up going our own way, trying not to get too lost within the rocks. But I just followed one path half way through before I finally can to a small clearing and a bridge. Some of the paths I took brought me to the tops of the rocks and I could see a small aerial view of the rocks and the garden as more of a whole. It was so cool! Also my group too a really cute photo in a circular doorway in the garden. We had lost our prof and his family and the tour guide in the maze of rocks and were actually all surprised that we as students were still all together (there are only 11 of us).
After finding our way our of the rock maze of a garden we got back on the bus and drove for about 30 minutes to our next stop. Our next stop was a silk factory. THe silk factory was cool but because it is cold outside they don't have any silk worms so the tour was pretty quick. Through we did see workers spinning the silk.
After the silk factory our tour guide brought us to see a street market, which was more like an our die shopping center. We had 30 minuets to explore so Sydney, Sophie, Siri and I all walked around. Sophie and Siri both bought sweaters. Once we were all back on the bus we drove over an hour back to the dorms. I was so exhausted I fell asleep on the bus ride back (I don't usually sleep on the bus). Once back we had a late dinner. The place we had dinner had prepared a special Christmas dinner for us. We had Turkey! Also we had these little fried ball things that I though we're at first mashed potato but were actually mashed taro root. I am still a bit confused to whether taro and purple potato, also known as oob, are different or the same thing. I have heard conflicting answers. Anyway they were super good!! I liked them probably as much as the turkey, also ate my entire meal with chopsticks!
Sunday (aka Christmas Day)-
First off, Merry Christmas! Started my day by of course waking up and getting dressed, I decided to dress a bit nicer I wore a dress I had brought with me, a sweater and leggings. This morning all us students decided to go out for a more American style breakfast for we had researched a bit and had found Al's Diner. So off we all went at 8:30am to the metro and then to find the diner. As we were getting on the metro our group got a bit split up oops... We all found each other though at the diner, thank goodness we all made it and found the place! Haha.
Breakfast was delicious!! I had buttermilk pancakes and treated myself to a chocolate shake for breakfast! :) We all had such a great time together eating and talking and laughing. I so enjoy the time I spend with this group of people they are such wonderful people! This was also such a great way to start Christmas Day, I thought I would be a bit more homesick but I think I was more homesick the week leading up to Christmas than actually Christmas Day. We kept pretty busy Christmas day.
After making our way back to the dorms we met up with our professor's wife and two girls. We got on the bus and an hour later we found ourselves at the zotter's Chocolate factory!!!! Okay so going to a chocolate factory pretty much made my day!! How often do you get to visit a chocolate factory and visit the chocolate factory on Christmas!! Also Ate WAY too much chocolate! There was so much to try! After the first few rooms and being told about the chocolate and testing the chocolate I limited myself to just the ones I knew I would like, so I was doing pretty well by the half way point, some of my friends were trying everything, I don't know how their stomachs held it all. At the half way point we got to make our own hot chocolate, Siri and I split one because we were pretty full. After the hot chocolate though I was could not eat another piece of chocolate. I seriously in all my life never thought I would utter the words I told Sydney..."I don't think I can eat anymore chocolate"! So the rest of the tour I walked around and watched every one else continue to sample, by the end I think I was doing pretty well and my stomach was feeling full but not hurting, though few of the other girls said they had stomach aches. It was so much fun though to go to a chocolate factory and get to sample so much chocolate!! It made me a very happy person!! :)
So we drove the hour or so back to the dorms and had about an hour to rest up a bit. I spent that time packing and I threw some of my laundry in with Kevin's, Kevin was doing laundry and my jeans needed to be washed. So after repackaged my stuff we all went to dinner. It was family style Chinese food dinner. It was pretty good, I don't like tofu though, I try it thinking I may like if prepared differently but I still never like it any more than I had the last time I tried it.
Monday-
So early wake up because we have an early flight to Xi'an so at 4:30 my alarm goes off, I proceeded to turn it off and fall back asleep. Oops. Thankfully I had another alarm set for 4:45am, thank goodness, so I rolled out of bed get dressed and did all the last minute packing. And lugged my stuff down the to the lobby and then to the bus. We all were supposed to meet at 5:15 but we didn't end up leaving till 5:30, all the students were ready and down in the lobby of the dorm waiting for the bus to arrive form picking up our professor and his family. Finally at 5:30 we left for the airport.
Okay now the fun begins, haha, so the bus drops us off at terminal 1. We unload everything and start to enter the airport but our tour guide is stopped and told our flight is actually in terminal 2. So our guide streets us to the terminal bus stop to get on a bus headed for terminal 2. (Time: 6:45am Flight Departure:8:20am). We got off the bus at terminal 2 and went through baggage check out get into the airport building. Got into the building and went to the check out counter we thought we needed to be at. As we are standing there our guide is talking with the check in people, he turned around with a very worried and exasperated expression on his face and says to follow him because we need to go back to terminal 1 because THAT is where our flight actually is. UGH airports! So we speed walk to through the airport tunnels back to terminal 1. (Time: 7:15am Flight Departure:8:20am)
We get back to terminal 1 and go through the entrance baggage check again. We are finally in the right terminal and looking for our check in counter. We follow our guide through to the check in counter. Our guide lives in Beijing and will be accompanying us all the way to Beijing.So finally we are at the right check in counter. We all get checked in only one girl was stopped because she had a charger in her checked luggage, having any sort of charging devise in your luggage is prohibited. (Time: 7:40 Flight Departure 8:20)
No for the final security check before we go to find our gate. Got through security agin with out having to open my bag and dig through it for airport security! Did get scanned down though, but oh well doesn't bother me, probably because I have my watch on. Once I personally made it through security the guide to me the gate and told me to start walking there. (Time: 7:55am Flight Departure: 8:20am).
Made it to the gate just in time for last call, thankfully we all made it to the gate to catch the last bus to the plane before the gate closed. We all let out our breath as we entered the bus and then climbed the steps to the plane. Got seated. Once the plane took off I tried to fall asleep but failed and ended up reading till we landed.
Once we landed we met up with another native Xi'an guide who would be with us to the next two days. Before we left the airport we ate a big family style lunch before heading to our next stop. Before we went to the hotel we stopped and walked the ancient Xi'an city gate wall that surround the city center. Some people in the group end up renting bikes and biking around the wall. I just wanted to walk for a bit so Sophie, Sydney, Siri and I all walked part of the wall and then turned around to meet the group once they were done biking around the wall.
After the wall we checked into our hotel and got settled. We had a good hour or so before dinner. My original plan was to walk around Xi'an during that hour but I ended up lying down on my bed and falling completely asleep, didn't even try to. I only woke up because Becca (my roommate) had apparently went walking around the city and had come back to meet up with the group for dinner. She was sent to come get me since I had net showed up yet in the lobby. Haha, if she haven't come and gotten me I would have probably kept sleeping for quite a bit.
Went to dinner, we had more dumplings, not as good as the last time we had dumplings. After dinner a part of us walked around the open area between the drum tower and the bell tower. It was fun walking and talking. We ended up walking into this huge mall and we walked around each floor. We finally went back to the hotel and I crashed into bed.
Tuesday-
First stop was a factory were replicas of the Terracotta Warriors are made. We saw how they make them and heard about the process then walked around the factory and saw the replicas as well as they were making other things out of clay.
After touring this factory we drove for another 30 minutes to see the actual Terracotta Warriors. So excited for this! As we walked into the first pit I was in awe, it was massive and to think there are still SO many more under the ground still!! Only 2,000 or so have been dug up, the others haven't been dug up because scientist haven't figured out to preserve the color on the Terracotta Warriors. Once the color on the outside of the armor interacts with oxygen it disappears. But to think there are about 8,000 in total and only 2,000 have been dug up. This first empires mausoleum is humongous! It is even thought that within his personal tomb that there is a "sea" of mercury. Back when these empowers died they were died with everything they may need in the after life so often people were also killed to "go with the empower into the next world". But these real people were replaced by clay replicas. But the personal tomb of the first empower of China is though to have a "mini" of his whole kingdom inside. The history of what these emperors's were buried with is crazy but so so interesting!
So after somewhat getting over the shock of seeing something I had only ever seen in picture I took pictures. I could help but turn to Sydney and tell her that I felt like a textbook photographer, because the picture I was taking were from the same angles and everything that the picture I remember seeing in my AP world history text book were taken from. So cool!! So after visiting the iconic Terracotta Warrior's pit we visited two other pits which were much smaller and not as well "put together". The worriers in one pit had no heads but there was the remnants of what may have been a chariot, cause there were horses. In the last pit we visited not much had been dug up and what was dug up was still in a million pieces. Most all of the Warriors need to be puzzled back together. Sydney and I were talking about this process and we talking about how they must puzzle them back together more on an individual person working at one site. Because to have even more than two people at one site the pieces would get very very mixed up and everything would end up jumbled, I know I would be very frustrated if I was working with more than one person, maybe even one person would be a challenge.
I got to see one of the most famous Warriors uncovered, which is the archer, the warrior down on one knee. This is the only one which did not have to be puzzled back together. After wandering through the museum and seeing these amazing Terracotta Warriors we headed back to the bus but not before we ate lunch.
We drove about 45 minutes before we stopped at the Xi'an history museum. We were at the museum for about 2 hours and walked all over the museum. It was fun to walk around but in some sections it was harder to be interested because we had just seen very similar artifacts a day or so prior at the Shanghai museum. I still enjoyed walking around and looking at as much as I could. After the museum we piled back into the bus and drove back to the hotel. Once back Sydney, Sophie, Siri and I all dropped our stuff off and walked around looking for what to have for dinner.
After dinner I got back to the hotel and relaxed for a bit. I put the photos from my camera onto my iPad and went through them and updated my photo stream with pictures and short captions about each picture.
As a group we all went out for ice cream! After ice cream and chatting with everyone we all headed back to the hotel. Tomorrow we take the bullet train to Beijing and again have to be up early for travel. The good thing, there is no weight limit for train travel. SO I got back to my room and pretty much put almost everything I had into my suitcase (pretty sure the weight was around if not above 50lbs...)
Thursday-
Woke up and ate my last piece of toast and drank a final cup of tea. Did some last minute packing and did a final check of my room. So we were all supposed to be down in the lobby and on the bus by 9am. My room and one other girl were all down on time and on the bus. Our tour guide in Hong Kong was getting very anxious and was ready to have the bus leave and who ever wasn't there by 9:10 would have to take a taxi to the airport.... Thankfully everybody was in the lobby and getting on the bus by 9:10. Then off to the airport we left.
We got through the airport pretty quickly and my bag didn't get have to be pulled to the side to be checked!! (This is like the first time, I shove so much into my backpack, seriously it could be like Mary Poppins bag) though in all truth I am a bit nervous to open anything cause who knows if it'll shut again. But I swear I always have to be patted down after going through the metal detector thing, I remember the first few times at the beginning of trip I was a bit where'd out and now it's just normal. In Egypt and India there were separate lines for men and women and the women's line always had a enclosed area where we would be metal scanned and have our passport checked.
Plane ride went smoothly we got a meal and the watermelon was super good and at the end of the meal they took our trays and gave us ice cream. I was super excited about this until I saw the flavor was banana cream, I gave mine to Sydney. I don't like banana flavored ice cream, or banana flavored things, except banana bread I love my moms banana bread muffins. The rest of the flight was spent on my end of site reflection.
We got off the airport and met up with our new tour guide and drove to the East China Normal University (ENCU). By this time is was getting dark and after we checked into our dorm rooms at the university, our room smelt weird, but oh well we are only here a few days. We then went to dinner. We ate family style with a bunch of different Chinese dishes, I ate jellyfish....... It was a weird consistency. I still don't know what exactly to think of eating jellyfish. But I ate it and I tried it.
After dinner (8:30pm) we had a hour and a half lecture on contemporary China. It was a good lecture but it got long and some of the facts were a bit weird. But oh well. After we all walked back to the downs and pretty much fell asleep. though I woke up quite a few times during the night because the heater was right above my bed and made ALOT of noise, sometimes I though for sure it was going to fall off the wall and onto me... Thankfully it didn't.
Friday
Woke up and got ready for the day. Went down stairs for breakfast, I ate fried rice and Chinese broccoli. Then I went back upstairs to grab my jacket and my backpack then back down stairs to meet with our tour guide and start the day.
We started out the day at the Shanghai Museum and spent a few hours wandering around looking at bronze works, jade, calligraphy, paintings, and a bunch of other things. It was interesting to see everything but I got a bit tired toward the end of our time at the museum. Next we went to lunch.
After lunch we, Siri, Becca, Kevin, Sophie, Michael, Zozo Pazong and I all wandered around the People's park trying to find a market we were told to go see. We couldn't find the market but we took the metro to another market. We all spent about 2 hours walking around the market and looking at things as well getting lost a few times within the market, it was really big and spread out = very easy to get lost in... I bought two small paintings.
After the market we all kinda split up and did our own thing. Siri and Sophie and I went to the Bund. The Bund is a place you can go to get a nice view of the Shanghai skyline. We went in the evening when it was dark and it was so pretty with all the buildings lit up! After taking many pictures and walking down the boardwalk we found our way back to the metro. First though we found dinner then started the grand journey of figuring out how to get back to the dorms.
We did pretty well finding our way back via the metro system, I have become a semi master, I think, at finding my way around the metro. Once we got off the metro we started walking toward where we thought the University's main entrance was, we took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up taking a longer way back and going through an entirely different gate (which was not marked very well as one of the university entrances). Once we walked through the gate we had absolutely no clue where our dorm was. I ended up asking these three guys for directions, I asked if they knew where the international dorms were and where we were on campus currently. They all looked at each other a laughed a bit and one guy says "there are three dorms". Siri Sophie and I all sighed cause we had no clue what one of the three we were staying in. They circled on a map where the three were and went on their way. So off we went trying to figure out which dorm was ours. as we were walking along we recognized a few landmarks and actually figured out where we were and how to get back. Success!
Once back I got ready for bed and was curious about how far I had walked today. My phone told me I had walked a total of 10 miles! Now I understood why I felt so tired! Haha. I slept quite well!
Saturday (Christmas Eve)
Woke up on the earlier side for touring, we had a big day ahead. Also it's Christmas Eve today. Got ready for the day and went to breakfast had a very similar breakfast to yesterday's, rice and a veggie. Went back up to my room to grab my backpack and my jacket then off to the bus.
Today we are visiting two gardens. We drove an hour to the first garden, the Humble Administrators Garden. One of our lectures back in Hong Kong was on gardens and this garden was mentioned by our professor. The garden was Huge and very pretty. There are four main elements that make for a "good garden": water, rocks, the buildings and the plants. So our tour guide pointed out all these elements as we walked around. I enjoyed this garden but I really liked the next garden we went to. When I was walking out of the garden my mom and dad called to wish me a merry Christmas. It was nice to talk with them, they both were just sitting down to start the movie Christmas Vacation, a family tradition we all watch this movie.
After the first garden it was time for lunch. We go to eat a a place that served traditional dim sum. We had 16 courses of food.... Each course consisted of enough dumplings or food so that each of the four people sitting at the table could have one piece, which was perfect but still a ton of food! One of my favorites was this black dumpling that I learned had been colored black with the use of octopus ink. I loved a lot of the courses but another that stood out to me was a spicy sticky rice ball. I have a special love for sticky rice, I grew up with my mom making it every once in a while. My favorite thing beside eating it for dinner was taking it for a school snack the next day! Haha. It makes for pretty great snack food. :)
After the big lunch we went to the second garden which was the Lion's Grove, a garden of pretty much all rocks! Both of these gardens were in the town of Suzhou. Then you first walk into the garden you are surrounded by rocks, so many rocks! So of course we all ended up going our own way, trying not to get too lost within the rocks. But I just followed one path half way through before I finally can to a small clearing and a bridge. Some of the paths I took brought me to the tops of the rocks and I could see a small aerial view of the rocks and the garden as more of a whole. It was so cool! Also my group too a really cute photo in a circular doorway in the garden. We had lost our prof and his family and the tour guide in the maze of rocks and were actually all surprised that we as students were still all together (there are only 11 of us).
After finding our way our of the rock maze of a garden we got back on the bus and drove for about 30 minutes to our next stop. Our next stop was a silk factory. THe silk factory was cool but because it is cold outside they don't have any silk worms so the tour was pretty quick. Through we did see workers spinning the silk.
After the silk factory our tour guide brought us to see a street market, which was more like an our die shopping center. We had 30 minuets to explore so Sydney, Sophie, Siri and I all walked around. Sophie and Siri both bought sweaters. Once we were all back on the bus we drove over an hour back to the dorms. I was so exhausted I fell asleep on the bus ride back (I don't usually sleep on the bus). Once back we had a late dinner. The place we had dinner had prepared a special Christmas dinner for us. We had Turkey! Also we had these little fried ball things that I though we're at first mashed potato but were actually mashed taro root. I am still a bit confused to whether taro and purple potato, also known as oob, are different or the same thing. I have heard conflicting answers. Anyway they were super good!! I liked them probably as much as the turkey, also ate my entire meal with chopsticks!
Sunday (aka Christmas Day)-
First off, Merry Christmas! Started my day by of course waking up and getting dressed, I decided to dress a bit nicer I wore a dress I had brought with me, a sweater and leggings. This morning all us students decided to go out for a more American style breakfast for we had researched a bit and had found Al's Diner. So off we all went at 8:30am to the metro and then to find the diner. As we were getting on the metro our group got a bit split up oops... We all found each other though at the diner, thank goodness we all made it and found the place! Haha.
Breakfast was delicious!! I had buttermilk pancakes and treated myself to a chocolate shake for breakfast! :) We all had such a great time together eating and talking and laughing. I so enjoy the time I spend with this group of people they are such wonderful people! This was also such a great way to start Christmas Day, I thought I would be a bit more homesick but I think I was more homesick the week leading up to Christmas than actually Christmas Day. We kept pretty busy Christmas day.
After making our way back to the dorms we met up with our professor's wife and two girls. We got on the bus and an hour later we found ourselves at the zotter's Chocolate factory!!!! Okay so going to a chocolate factory pretty much made my day!! How often do you get to visit a chocolate factory and visit the chocolate factory on Christmas!! Also Ate WAY too much chocolate! There was so much to try! After the first few rooms and being told about the chocolate and testing the chocolate I limited myself to just the ones I knew I would like, so I was doing pretty well by the half way point, some of my friends were trying everything, I don't know how their stomachs held it all. At the half way point we got to make our own hot chocolate, Siri and I split one because we were pretty full. After the hot chocolate though I was could not eat another piece of chocolate. I seriously in all my life never thought I would utter the words I told Sydney..."I don't think I can eat anymore chocolate"! So the rest of the tour I walked around and watched every one else continue to sample, by the end I think I was doing pretty well and my stomach was feeling full but not hurting, though few of the other girls said they had stomach aches. It was so much fun though to go to a chocolate factory and get to sample so much chocolate!! It made me a very happy person!! :)
So we drove the hour or so back to the dorms and had about an hour to rest up a bit. I spent that time packing and I threw some of my laundry in with Kevin's, Kevin was doing laundry and my jeans needed to be washed. So after repackaged my stuff we all went to dinner. It was family style Chinese food dinner. It was pretty good, I don't like tofu though, I try it thinking I may like if prepared differently but I still never like it any more than I had the last time I tried it.
Monday-
So early wake up because we have an early flight to Xi'an so at 4:30 my alarm goes off, I proceeded to turn it off and fall back asleep. Oops. Thankfully I had another alarm set for 4:45am, thank goodness, so I rolled out of bed get dressed and did all the last minute packing. And lugged my stuff down the to the lobby and then to the bus. We all were supposed to meet at 5:15 but we didn't end up leaving till 5:30, all the students were ready and down in the lobby of the dorm waiting for the bus to arrive form picking up our professor and his family. Finally at 5:30 we left for the airport.
Okay now the fun begins, haha, so the bus drops us off at terminal 1. We unload everything and start to enter the airport but our tour guide is stopped and told our flight is actually in terminal 2. So our guide streets us to the terminal bus stop to get on a bus headed for terminal 2. (Time: 6:45am Flight Departure:8:20am). We got off the bus at terminal 2 and went through baggage check out get into the airport building. Got into the building and went to the check out counter we thought we needed to be at. As we are standing there our guide is talking with the check in people, he turned around with a very worried and exasperated expression on his face and says to follow him because we need to go back to terminal 1 because THAT is where our flight actually is. UGH airports! So we speed walk to through the airport tunnels back to terminal 1. (Time: 7:15am Flight Departure:8:20am)
We get back to terminal 1 and go through the entrance baggage check again. We are finally in the right terminal and looking for our check in counter. We follow our guide through to the check in counter. Our guide lives in Beijing and will be accompanying us all the way to Beijing.So finally we are at the right check in counter. We all get checked in only one girl was stopped because she had a charger in her checked luggage, having any sort of charging devise in your luggage is prohibited. (Time: 7:40 Flight Departure 8:20)
No for the final security check before we go to find our gate. Got through security agin with out having to open my bag and dig through it for airport security! Did get scanned down though, but oh well doesn't bother me, probably because I have my watch on. Once I personally made it through security the guide to me the gate and told me to start walking there. (Time: 7:55am Flight Departure: 8:20am).
Made it to the gate just in time for last call, thankfully we all made it to the gate to catch the last bus to the plane before the gate closed. We all let out our breath as we entered the bus and then climbed the steps to the plane. Got seated. Once the plane took off I tried to fall asleep but failed and ended up reading till we landed.
Once we landed we met up with another native Xi'an guide who would be with us to the next two days. Before we left the airport we ate a big family style lunch before heading to our next stop. Before we went to the hotel we stopped and walked the ancient Xi'an city gate wall that surround the city center. Some people in the group end up renting bikes and biking around the wall. I just wanted to walk for a bit so Sophie, Sydney, Siri and I all walked part of the wall and then turned around to meet the group once they were done biking around the wall.
After the wall we checked into our hotel and got settled. We had a good hour or so before dinner. My original plan was to walk around Xi'an during that hour but I ended up lying down on my bed and falling completely asleep, didn't even try to. I only woke up because Becca (my roommate) had apparently went walking around the city and had come back to meet up with the group for dinner. She was sent to come get me since I had net showed up yet in the lobby. Haha, if she haven't come and gotten me I would have probably kept sleeping for quite a bit.
Went to dinner, we had more dumplings, not as good as the last time we had dumplings. After dinner a part of us walked around the open area between the drum tower and the bell tower. It was fun walking and talking. We ended up walking into this huge mall and we walked around each floor. We finally went back to the hotel and I crashed into bed.
Tuesday-
First stop was a factory were replicas of the Terracotta Warriors are made. We saw how they make them and heard about the process then walked around the factory and saw the replicas as well as they were making other things out of clay.
After touring this factory we drove for another 30 minutes to see the actual Terracotta Warriors. So excited for this! As we walked into the first pit I was in awe, it was massive and to think there are still SO many more under the ground still!! Only 2,000 or so have been dug up, the others haven't been dug up because scientist haven't figured out to preserve the color on the Terracotta Warriors. Once the color on the outside of the armor interacts with oxygen it disappears. But to think there are about 8,000 in total and only 2,000 have been dug up. This first empires mausoleum is humongous! It is even thought that within his personal tomb that there is a "sea" of mercury. Back when these empowers died they were died with everything they may need in the after life so often people were also killed to "go with the empower into the next world". But these real people were replaced by clay replicas. But the personal tomb of the first empower of China is though to have a "mini" of his whole kingdom inside. The history of what these emperors's were buried with is crazy but so so interesting!
So after somewhat getting over the shock of seeing something I had only ever seen in picture I took pictures. I could help but turn to Sydney and tell her that I felt like a textbook photographer, because the picture I was taking were from the same angles and everything that the picture I remember seeing in my AP world history text book were taken from. So cool!! So after visiting the iconic Terracotta Warrior's pit we visited two other pits which were much smaller and not as well "put together". The worriers in one pit had no heads but there was the remnants of what may have been a chariot, cause there were horses. In the last pit we visited not much had been dug up and what was dug up was still in a million pieces. Most all of the Warriors need to be puzzled back together. Sydney and I were talking about this process and we talking about how they must puzzle them back together more on an individual person working at one site. Because to have even more than two people at one site the pieces would get very very mixed up and everything would end up jumbled, I know I would be very frustrated if I was working with more than one person, maybe even one person would be a challenge.
I got to see one of the most famous Warriors uncovered, which is the archer, the warrior down on one knee. This is the only one which did not have to be puzzled back together. After wandering through the museum and seeing these amazing Terracotta Warriors we headed back to the bus but not before we ate lunch.
We drove about 45 minutes before we stopped at the Xi'an history museum. We were at the museum for about 2 hours and walked all over the museum. It was fun to walk around but in some sections it was harder to be interested because we had just seen very similar artifacts a day or so prior at the Shanghai museum. I still enjoyed walking around and looking at as much as I could. After the museum we piled back into the bus and drove back to the hotel. Once back Sydney, Sophie, Siri and I all dropped our stuff off and walked around looking for what to have for dinner.
After dinner I got back to the hotel and relaxed for a bit. I put the photos from my camera onto my iPad and went through them and updated my photo stream with pictures and short captions about each picture.
As a group we all went out for ice cream! After ice cream and chatting with everyone we all headed back to the hotel. Tomorrow we take the bullet train to Beijing and again have to be up early for travel. The good thing, there is no weight limit for train travel. SO I got back to my room and pretty much put almost everything I had into my suitcase (pretty sure the weight was around if not above 50lbs...)
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