Chiner... a place that will make you cry to get a taste of food you prefer not to eat at home... McDonald's

Hong Kong is pretty darn cool. Its been such a long time since I was there, things are starting to fade away. Right now I am doing this instead of doing much needed work on my thesis project. Oops, we all have our priorities I suppose. After a 2.5 weeks from Facebook and Blogging, I would not have survived without HBO and endless movies on the TV. Is this sad? Probably, but there is so much to share and almost no way to share it.

Anyway, on to my life for the past 3 weeks. China... Shanghai was beautiful. The weather was amazing and it was interesting, and our hotel had a pool and hot tub, our first to have one. We took advantage... when we had time of course. I discovered that I do incredibly enjoy Chinese gardens. They offer a sense of discover and adventure with rocks to climb on, pools of fish, pagodas and the complete works. They are perfect for inner reflection, which I tended to skip and just walked around and sketched... most of the time.




Next, we went to Xi'an which is a little hazy with pollution but still pretty warm. We took a bike ride around on top of the entire city wall (9 miles) and enjoyed the entire thing thoroughly. I had a Chinese Gina (my bike) it was a Giant who's kickstand failed to stay up and dragged the ground. It was bumpy but I had a blast.




We also went to visit the Terra Cotta Warriors that a farmer found in his field a couple decades ago. No two warriors are alike... it was really cold in the pits that we went to see them in.




Next, we went to Beijing after a sleeper train that put the Egytian sleeper trains to rest, and saw The Bird's Nest (olypmic village), Tian'ammen Square, and The Forbidden City. We were unprepared for the bitter cold that awaited us this day and were freazing and forced to skip lunch for no apparent reason.

Tian'ammen Square


The Forbidden City


my face before I found hot tea and popcorn inside the nest to supplement lunch




The Water Cube

my face after I found the hot tea and popcorn =)

The next day in Beijing was the day I had been somewhat mentally preparing for for months.... THE GREAT WALL!!! In preparation for the 9 mile trek up and down the treturous conditions of The Great Wall, I took 2 pain pills. The path getting up to the wall was steep and already had me taking off layers when we go to it. We hiked on a less touristy part of the wall and it had just snowed that morning so it was nice and slick in places that made the trip even more exciting.

After an hour of hiking, I decided to take another pain pill because I was still struggling a little. Don't get me wrong, I was still near the front and not really having too much trouble physically, but my knees were not loving the down-hills. We all stayed quite toasty througout the entire journey and I was quite comfortable. There were AMAZING views and I was acutely aware of the amazing things that I was doing.... CLIMBING THE GREAT WALL!!





When I was done, we struggled up the last few stairs 2 hours and 2 and 45 minutes, I discovered the laterway we were getting down was a zipline.... amazing! I was one of the first on the bus and after eating to recharge and waiting for people to all get on, I took another 2 pain pills... mistake. I was hurting a lot and I just wanted to ease the pain. Soon after we started rolling, I started feeling REALLY tired and dizzy. I slept some of it off and then we stopped for dinner so I was able to get over it pretty quickly... never again.

Next, we moved on to Dataong... why, I am not sure. There is nothing to do in Datong, the local guide even said so. We drove long distances to get to places outside of Datong that were interesting though. We went to see The Hanging Temple that is snuggled on the side of a cliff. It was pretty cool.

and of course we went in it!



It was around this time that I was starting to go crazy from entire group dinners around a lazy susan where we all had to share and be cordial and get a little bit of a lot of different dishes. One tiny little glass of drink max. I couldn't look at one more piece of rice, meat, and veggies in a sauce again. One night at dinner, we had a particularly horrible looking, smelling, and tasting dinner and i couldn't take it anymore. I wouldn't eat it. I couldn't eat it. I started laugh/crying and begging to go to McDonald's just to have something not Chinese. 3 meals a day for 16 days is a long time to eat the same food.... ugh. They felt sorry for me, so one of my roommates offered to buy me McDonald's and myself and 7 other people took a very cheap 15 minute cab ride to the McDonald's and it was the most amazing food I have ever had... or it seemed that way. It wasn't that I wanted McDonald's, its that I just couldn't eat anymore Chinese food and that was the only option, that or KFC. Everyone has told their friends, parents, and journals about my yet another breakdown. I am soooo famous.

We went back to Beijing for a night and then started an 8 hour plane ride to Moscow and then St. Petersburg with a negative 5 hour time change... longest day ever.
I am still recovering. We stayed in St. Petersburg at the sbuzziest hotel I have ever encountered that we have guessed used to be a hospital. It was dirty and the showers made you feel dirtier than before you got in. The first day in St. Petersburg, we drove around a little, went to Peter and Paul's fortress Cathedral, walked around and got some lunch (beef and potatoes, typical Russian), The Hermitage and then called it a day.

The Hermitage... what can I say about that. The Hermitage is a museum of art. We spent a few hours getting completely lost and narrating inappropriately to the paintings to pass the time. We found the internet cafe that was near the exit. It was cheap and I had been a day or so without internet, so I decided to get on. Before I knew it, it was time to get to the bus, I had 5 minutes. I look around and it appears that everyone has left me and I have no idea how to actually get to the exit. I got down one hallway, nope. Go down the other way, nope. I find a familiar place and go out of the turnstile... mistake. It's not the right exit where we were meeting. I can't get back into the museum part anymore and very few people speak English. I start panicking. I find a security guard that speaks English and lets me back into the museum and tells me that I need to go down to the right. I get to the end of that hallway and then find the correct cloakroom that we were supposed to be meeting at. Of course they are all gone and I am now 7 minutes late. The lady at the cloakroom is yelling and pointing to the left telling me to hurry, I can only guess. I run to the left and out the door and see my group and bus out there. I run through the parking lot while the person that left me takes my pictures and I struggle to restrain myself from physically hurting him. I immediately get on the bus and learn that if I had not turned up in 2 minutes, I was going to be left there... and then what? Shit. I had no way to get back to the hotel that I had no idea where it was. But I made it, that's all tha matters now. Then we went back to the hotel and then went on an adventure to find Pizza Hut, another restaurant that I don't particularly like at home. It took us quite a while to find the place that I happened to spot on the bus tour that morning... we made it and it was better than any pizza I have had in the US. An amazing end to a rough day.





Russian architecture is crazy. Bold colors with white trim, quite interesting...

The next day... this morning, we went to a few palaces and our interest fained to see overdone rooms and portriats of people we don't know. But we had a nice lunch!


After that, we boarded a plane to Helsinki and we got to an amazing hotel with free, fast internet, ate a DELICIOUS buffet that was NOT CHINESE FOOD and now have spent the evening getting everyone up to speed on the last 3 weeks or so on my life instead of doing homework... it's worth it as long as you all appreciate it. I love all of your comments... good or bad (anonymous, I know who you are and where you sleep) I hope you all enjoy what I have to say and I just want to end on the note of saying that there are a lot of very attractive Russians and I would not mind being near one =)(Richard, that one is for you)