Bungee, Hiking, and the Peking Family

Me and Cassidy in the Forbidden City

Hello to you all back in the states

China is the most interesting place in the entire world, I laws lucky enough to visit both Hong Kong and then the mainland to get a feel for all of China…  

Me on the old part of the Great Wall

So first things first, I spent most of my time in Hong Kong actually in Macau for Bungee Jumping, due to the fact that passports took all day to hand out we missed our first two time slots (I went with about 57 kids) at 11 AM and Noon, I was in the 1 PM bracket but didn’t get to jump until 5 PM. Still though being in Macau tower you had the most amazing views of the area Casinos and skyscrapers. Macau is the Vegas of China and amazing to see lit up all at night. Anyways back to bungee I got the video and pics, In which you see me have a small breakdown on the plank where I am yelling some profanity over and over again, then have to be pushed to the edge by the instructors and its looks like I am about to pass out, then it’s “5, 4, 3, 2, 1, BUNGEE” next thing I know I am off the platform and into the air, what a rush that is, the first moment I was freaking out, but then it gets to be quite enjoyable when you are in freefall, then I shot back up almost to the top again and I didn’t mentally prepare myself for this so it’s another round of profanity as I try to remember to pull the tab to make me rightside up so then I am trying to figure that out for another few minutes, needless to say it was a process, but anyways I LOVED IT, it is something I will do again. After Bungee it was back over to Hong Kong where I spent the evening touring the city with my friends Marcus, Gail, and Carly picking up mementos from this amazing port and visited the night market which was still crowded at about 1 AM.

The Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium, Beijing

THE GREAT WALL WAS UNREAL, when you get on it you just cannot grasp how big it is and that people actually spent time making this monstrosity its long enough to fit from the east coast to the west cost of the United States. We hiked the old or unfinished part on the first day, which consisted of more trail based hiking at parts of the wall were over grown and you had to get off the wall at parts and then on day two we hiked the  finished area which was all on the wall, but was steeper and more of an up and down exercise… oh its unbelievably cold too thank god I bought a North Face Winter Jacket in Vietnam, and had a sweatshirt cause I had to give this girl, Margaret, my inner lining of my jacket to wear cause it was so cold, but anyways we hiked for two days and that was cool, plus the views of the mountains and the never ending wall were out of this world to see, we saw the sunset on the wall, and then were attacked by vendors selling anything and everything I Bought a Commie Hat just for the sake of it but came in handy as it kept my face warm it has the ear flaps. YES HB I recommend the Great Wall to anyone, Oh and just a little FUN FACT: If you will pay they will hike McDonalds up to you on the Great Wall that was our lunch the first day of hiking on top of the Great Wall of China I had 2 Big Macs, cross that off the Bucket List. FUN FACT 2: Bowling and Karaoke are huge in Asia we had a bowling alley and an archery court in our hotel and they were the hot places to go and Karaoke Bars are more frequent than a Dunkin Donuts in Massachusetts. 

The last day we headed into the city of Beijing wow the skyline and buildings China is looking more and more modernized and less and less like a developing country… We saw the famous Tiananmen Square, which is the largest square in the world and the place where Mao Ze Dong proclaimed the creation of the People’s Republic of China… Behind the Square is the Forbidden City, which is a monstrosity in itself and the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. The complex houses 980 buildings and 8,707 rooms and took nearly 20 years to complete. The place is about the size of Nichols College getting from Winston all the way down the hill to Rem and then have some extra room too. After that visit we went to a tea house where we were taught the culture of Chinese tea, and believe me there are a lot of rules when it comes to drinking and preparing tea, mainly which cup is for which tea, which one is for smelling or drinking, and proper hand positioning, seems a little excessive for tea drinking, the preparation of drinking take longer than actually drinking it, but hey that’s how they make their money, especially off tourists who need to get every type of tea, and then all the proper tea glasses for their new teas, so my guess is it’s them laughing their way to the bank.

The last stop before heading to the airport was to a drive by at the Olympic stadium, “The Birds Nest” the Olympics did a great job making it look much bigger than it actually was, the Stadium looked like Gillette Stadium could eat it for a snack, but still the design of that building is impressive, and according to our tour guide the building is being used constantly for all types of venues, their next big usage of it will be for Celine Dion’s World Tour which is something China is excited to start gearing up for, in my opinion the Olympics were bigger than her, but hey at least its being used… That night we were back in Shanghai meeting up with the ship after being in transit for two nights from Hong Kong to the mainland… We went out that night to a cool nightclub to celebrate my friend Tristan’s 21^st birthday, what a place to turn 21 in… The next day a few of us visited the marketplace to buy some more brand labels at cheap prices, Today I got Beat headphones by Dr. Dre for $11, two pairs of Vans for $40, pair of Oakley and Ray Bans for $18 all American Prices so even if they are knockoffs the prices aren’t bad at all, gotta love China, Shanghai port where we docked had the best view of the waterfront and Pudong Skyline which is continually growing with more and more skyscrapers, including the Oriental Pearl Tower, which is the second tallest building in China at the present time… 

So now I will talk about the food, everything is served on a lazy susan and the food is setup for approximately 8 people, we had everything from disgusting mushrooms, tofu, and full fishes, which no one ate, to Peking Duck (not bad), to Kung Pao Chicken and then millions of veggie and pork dishes we ran out of food at every meal minus the gross plates no one would eat, at one meal they refused to give us more food (going so far to give the extra duck to the Vegitarian table that we were stuck next to just to be funny), others we took this matter into our own hand and went around to the other tables in our group and took the food they didn’t eat. My table was told we eat the most out of anyone they have ever seen, by the tour guide and the waitstaff… and as I said before lunch on the Great Wall they hiked us up McDonalds, (I had eaten more McDonald than anyone ever needs to in a weeks period). Anyways my table was me, my friends: Kelly, Tristan, Drew, Cassidy, Jen, Nate, Pat, Kristin, John. We ate every meal together and became a family. The Peking family to be exact named after our Peking duck dinner, quite a group in fact we have our first on ship family dinner tonight!

All in all China was a great experience and I now cannot wait to return here and see more of this fascinating country. So tomorrow I will be in my last foreign port, Japan I cannot believe how fast this has gone by, I am heading off to Hiroshima tomorrow and then exploring Kyoto the following day, then Tokyo, and Yokohama, and going to a Sake production factory, and you can bet yourself I will be at a Karaoke bar and Sushi restaurant where you get the sushi off the conveyor belt. Then its 9 days to Hawaii, or as I like to call it Spring Break Part II after Mauritius, then a week to San Diego, where did the semester go, Keep me in Paradise I don’t want to cold and snow of Boston, Burlington, or Dudley… Enjoy the pics I used up some of my internet minutes for you guys, next port ill try and do a post of just pictures

Until after Japan Later,

Ed