Strawberry Panda

Church and Pies

Day Eleven: Today is Sunday so we got up earlyish to go to church. After figuring out how to use the subway, we got to the stop we wanted. We emerged from the subway station and looked around for “a tall blue building” so mom said. After walking around for awhile, mom pointed out the only skyscraper that looked to be close to us from a mile around. We walked about 15 minutes to it, and mom said, “We’re looking for two escalators going into it.” After getting closer, we peered in the door, and I saw a tank with alligators. I wrinkled my nose as we walked on. We kept walking and two escalators came out of the side of the building and what looked like a car dealership on the other side of the escalators. We went up the escalator and found our church. After church we were invited to “dinner” (although it was going to be at 3:00 p.m.).Mom said no, because it was noon, and mom said she was hungry and wanted to eat something soon (although I wanted to go). When we went to McDonalds we discovered that they fry their pies and don’t have apple pies but chocolate and apple pies, taro root pies, mango pies (which taste like warm mango sorbet), and pineapple pies.

Finding the Bookstore

Day Ten: I woke up to a blinding light shining in my eyes by the Chinese attendant asking for the headphones to the little tv at the end of each bed. Plus it was over an hour before getting to Shanghai. After we finally got there, we rolled our luggage out and found a cab. I found myself holding my breath as our cab driver started a cigarette. When we got to the street the hostel was on, we saw that the whole street had lights and decorations although I never knew what they were for… Our room ended up better than our last one. It was like a Holiday Inn with a rooftop, but not as great a room. Then we walked out in search of a “Bird Market” which ended in something that looked more like a “Cricket, Turtle, and Fish Market.” After that we walked back to the hostel, and mom looked up a foreign bookstore. We started off in search of the bookstore. We walked and we walked and tried to talk to people until we came to a foreign woman who spoke English and told us that we had walked the opposite direction and into the “Antique Market.” So, off we went. We had planned this for later, but, oh well, let’s shop! Then we went back to the hostel. Mom booked a tour or two, and then we went to find the bookstore again. Yay! We found the bookstore. Mom bought herself a new book, and I got “Brisingr” (because they had a small paperback). Then we came back to the hostel and slept.

poor little babies...

Our street

A Train Ride

Day Nine: Sleepy day. We ate dumplings for lunch and started to pack for an overnight train ride to Shanghai. After saying good-bye to the cat that never ran away when I came close to her, plus the black bird that tried to bite your fingers off, the brown and gold bird that did back flips and all the little fish, we were off to the train station to catch a train. We waited for an hour or so to board and then got on. The room we were in had four beds, two were the seats and two were bunk beds over the seat-beds. Mom took the bottom bed, I got the top bed, and two business-looking men came in and took the other two beds. One of them spoke a little English, and the
other was not as friendly. They turned out the lights an hour later. Sorry, no pictures.

Birds Nest and The Water Cube

Day Eight: Sleepy Day! Today is short and simple. We went out to lunch and then left the hostel at 7:30 P.M. for the Olympic sites. When we got out of the subway, we saw the Bird’s Nest on the right side, and the Water cube on the left side, but yuck! “What is all this foggy yicky pollution stuff, making it hard to take pictures? What are all these fairly young trees doing growing around the Water Cube and Bird’s Nest to block parts of them from our sight, and why did they plant them there in the first place?” Those were my first thoughts coming out of the subway station. Some people were running around selling fake Olympic medals, small kites with other little kites attached to them, and such. When we walked up close and the foggy stuff thinned out a bit, and we got past the trees, it was a rather nice site. After awhile, we discovered that the Water Cube is actually made of water! Looking up close, you could see that the bubbles were baggy and wrinkled, and odd. Looking closely at the Bird’s Nest, you could see stairs in all the iron beams. Then the people selling stuff started flying long strings of kites in the night air.

The Great Wall Hike(Jinshanling to Simatai)

Day Seven: The Great Wall Hike. Today we got up at 7:00 a.m. and went to the Great Wall of China! The hike we went on was an average of 10 km. long. It took a bus ride, a taxi ride, a subway ride, and a cable car ride, just to get there! The cable car took forever. It was so slooooooooowwwwwwwwwww, I munched on some bread on the cable car. After we finally got to the “Great Wall” we started to walk and climb, up and down. A bunch of Chinese women told us they were farmers with no work. Two of them joined us through the hardest parts and tried to sell us souvenirs at the half way point. Mom gave them each 50 yuan for the help. The Great Wall is really gorgeous, but the only wildlife I saw were some bugs. The Great Wall is like most of the pictures I’ve seen to be honest, and really tough to climb at some places. As we walked, a tour group came from behind and passed us. Then a river split the Great Wall with a little swaying bridge connecting the ends. After crossing the bridge, we climbed a little bit more up the Great Wall, then we got to do a zipline over the river and had some ice cream. The zipline was interesting. They clipped us together and sent us down over the river. Down, down we went trying to hold all of our things together. Then because we crossed the river, we had to take a quick boat ride back over to the other side (with part of the tour group). After that it was back to a bus ride, a taxi ride, and a subway ride back to our hostel. And that was mostly what we did that day. Who, after all that walking, would want to do more?