Giant Picture Frame

So when you google Weihai and look at the images, one of the main ones that show up is of this giant picture frame with stone hands holding it up. It's super cool! So we decided that we were going in search of the giant picture frame, despite having no idea where it was and not exactly knowing how to ask anyone. Jake, Abbey, Ben, Caiti, and I took off down town. Once we found the "beach" we followed it for a while until low and behold, an enormous picture frame! It was even better in person, and the details on the hands were amazing. It made me sad that there was graffiti on the hands, but at least you couldn't see it from the front too badly.

Mug cooking and microwaves

The first time we opened the microwave here in our "kitchen" at the dorms there were four cockroaches hanging out in side.  My roommate went ahead and cooked them along with her hot jello water and they were never seen again. Yummmmmmy. 

On that note, here in china, we've invented something called "mug cooking". It's where you have a big mug, and you cook anything and everything possible in it. So far we've made chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, noodles, jello, and what ever else can be made from "just add water"

mixes. We've even made things, like the cookies, that needed milk eggs and oil, with just water.  I brought lots of mixes so figuring out how to cook them in just a mug and a microwave has been an interesting experiment. So far I've successfully made yummy American noodles that only tasted a little weird. I'm excited to master some more of these microwave recipes to eat when all that's at the cafeteria is tofu. Why eat hairy meat when you can eat cockroach cookies?

Walking around Beijing

Beijing is really neat city, and it's crazy busy!  It has a really neat mix of random western things like KFC and American clothing stores, mixed with ancient palaces and temples, mixed with super fancy hotels and shopping malls. It really is an amazing (smoggy) city. I prefer slightly smaller cities like Weihai, or much smaller places like Vista so I don't think I'd want to live in Beijing for long but I can totally see why other people would!!

We stayed in a really cool hostel in Beijing and it was really nice! Hostels are great to stay in because they are so much cheaper than hotels. The one we stayed in was around 12 American dollars a night, with very comfy beds, clean rooms, nice bathrooms, air conditioning, and free steady wifi. I don't think you could ever get a hotel for such a great deal! If you ever go to Beijing, it was called the Red Lantern so totally stay there. 

We spent most of our time walking around the cool alley way streets that are filled with shops, going to the night markets, and doing the super touristy stuff. It was a good combo because we got to experience both the sights and the culture of Beijing. 

One of the days we were there we did a thing where you put your feet in a tank of little fish and they nibble the dry skin of your feet. No one was really able to tell if their feet were actually softer, but it was definitely an experience! It tickled super badly but towards the end it got a little more relaxing. We paid to do it for 30 minutes and at first we were really worried because we didn't think we would be able to stand it for that long but we got used to it eventually. 

We stayed near a big lake and it had a lot of really cool stuff around it. Lots of nice restaurants in the mix with little noodle places and street food. There's so many smoothie places in Beijing, I wonder if it's for the tourists or if the Chinese love smoothies, too. So many good things to choose from! 

The big night market in Beijing was a lot of fun. It was definitely for tourists but it was fun to haggle and see all the cool stuff they sell. I  was trying to buy a cool thing (I'm still going to track one down somewhere so I can't say what) and my friend in my group got a good deal on one. I was trying to get an even better deal but the man got annoyed so he took it out of my hand and said "bye bye!" really loudly. Too bad he did that because I was about to buy it, but that's ok I'll find another one. :P

Beijing is huge with an awesome metro system that we tried to master. We got pretty good at it and never got too lost, but we did a few times.

We were only there for four days, I hope someday I can go back for even longer! 

The GREAT Wall of China

Our groups trip to the Great Wall of China has by far been my favorite thing I've done in China so far. The wall was absolutely amazing and just enormous! 

We took 3 hour bus ride from Beijing to the wall, and I was so tired I fell asleep on Maddy my roommates shoulder for about 90% of the time. One of the girls in my group asked me if I'm the kind of person that can fall asleep anywhere at any given time. My answer was yes, other than at night when I actually want to sleep. Once we got the spot at the Great Wall, I was pretty impressed because the wall is not just a wall on the ground, it's way up high on the mountains. Here was the first view of the wall. It was very high up and very impressive. 

Because we wanted to have more time on top of the wall, we took the ski lift up. It was a little scary but soooo beautiful. 

Once we got to the top I was a little confused if we were on an original part of the wall or not. I'm pretty sure the part the ski life landed on was added on later, so after we walked up a little and around a corner, we were REALLY on the Great Wall of China! It was sooooooo cool!!!! The section we went to was almost completely stairs, because it was built on some crazy mountains!

We walked around the wall for over three hours and I got separated from my group but that was ok because the wall is..... Well it's a wall so you can only go forward or backwards so I was never worried I'd get left behind. I had fun taking my time and taking as many pictures as I wanted to. It was either a very cloudy or a very smoggy day but it was still beautiful. 

Oh, and the way cool way to end the day. You can tabogan, as in talks one of those little slides, down the mountain! I can literally say I tobagoned off the Great Wall of China and it was super cool!!!

The Great Wall of China is amazing!! If you ever have am opportunity to go there, do it!! It's totally worry it in my opinion, it's just so awesome! It's not a wonder of the world for nothing! ;)