Days 9 & 10 - Shanghai & Heading Home!

We arrived in Shanghai after our 12 hour train ride from Beijing, exhausted. We took a cab to our hotel which was an experience. A shady guy in a tan jacket tried to get us to go with him for 80 RMB to an unmarked car...we followed for a little while and didn't see a taxi meter so we declined. He insisted .. we argued a bit and finally he relented. We found a metered cab and got to our hotel for 6 RMB. The hotel was an oasis in a foggy, smoggy, rainy city.

Exhausted, we ordered room service, showered, watched Patch Adams (hehe) and took a nap. We had planned on going to an acrobat show in the evening but ended up spending a good bit of time at the Shanghai Harbor & the Bund taking photos and just enjoying the scenery.

We took a cab back to the hotel and enjoyed an overpriced, but tasty dinner.

Day 10 began with room service breakfast and a cab ride to the Yuan Gardens. We never made it to the gardens (probably because of some language issue) but did make it to a pretty sweet street market. We had lunch at Pizza Hut because I am not sure our stomachs could take anymore noodles or Chinese food. Walked the streets for a while, developed nausea from the food being cooked on the street (again there were pig ears, odd sea horse/lizard looking things on a stick and cooked pig snouts) and cabbed it back to the hotel.

We are pretty much really, really ready to come home at this point so we rented a few DVDs from the hotel and watched an awful M. Night Shamalayn movie and the latest Mummy.

Called it a pretty early night as we had to get up at 5 am to get to the airport.

At Shanghai airport now heading to Tokyo, on to Detroit then finally to Atlanta. It's 8:30 AM local time in Shanghai on Friday and we'll get to Atlanta at 5:30 PM Friday. Bizarre how we gain an entire day given that our flight time is ~24 hours.

Overall, we had an incredible time. Saw things we'll probably never see again - Great Wall, Beijing Olympic sites, Hong Kong Harbor, pig snouts on the street, and Shanghai. It was an awesome trip and a once in a lifetime oppty.

Looking forward to getting home! Thanks for following our adventure!!

(we'll add photos when we get to Atlanta)

End of Day 8 - Beijing to Shanghai

Before we left Beijing on our 12 hour train ride to Shanghai, we decided to stroll the street a bit. We were looking for a place to eat since the Oodle restaurant in the hotel was closed. (We didn't have to be at the train station til 7 pm or so). Here was our first restaurant option: (which included chicken liver, goose feet, fried sea cucumber and other nummies. Also, note the tagline for the restaurant).
After passing up on this feast, we continued walking down the street. Ashley spotted a tea house and suggested we go in for a spot of tea. First mistake of the night. No one spoke English and there were 2 Chinese military guards at the door.

After some jumbled communication we sat down for what we thought was a sampling of teas. Second mistake.

48 glasses of tea in, 2 half eaten green tea cookies, and 1 tea flavored prune that Jon spit out on the table and they're still pouring the tea. Jon said, "You got us into this, you gotta get us out!" Ashley turns to the tea pourer and politely points to her wrist and says, "Train leaving. Need to leave." Pourer smiles and gets more hot water for tea. Jon begins laughing so hard he begins to cry and Ashley chokes on her 49th glass of tea.

Finally after more charades and baby talk they get the idea and we pay $20 or so for about 2 bags of tea. It was worth the memories.






We walked back to the hotel (starving) had a beer and waited for Oodle to finally open. We were both high on Black Tea and could barely sit still. Ashley peed 14 times between 5:00 and 5:24 PM.


We ate our noodle soup in record time - 4.9 minutes and headed for the train station. Here's some photos from dinner:


Unlike our lovely experience on the train from Hong Kong to Beijing, we were greeted with a much different scene this time. The entire population of Georgia could fit in this train station and they were all 1.) staring at us with disgust 2.) waiting to get on our train and 3.) chewing and spitting sunflower seeds and other liquids directly onto the floor. Needless to say, we weren't all that excited about this train ride.

Overall, the train ride wasn't too bad to Shanghai once we got past the odor, the precariously mounted upper bunk and Jon's bird flu that he contracted when a sunflower seed went into his eye. We slept most of the train ride and survived again on GORP and Ritz crackers. (Thanks to Ashley again :-))

Day 8 - Last day in Beijing

Today, as usual, began with breakfast at the hotel. We met a wonderful Australian couple where we talked politics, life in Australia, the fact that if McCain wins the world will hate the US even more, etc. etc. (In case you're wondering - the World as a whole seems to be very pro-Obama. Everyone we've talked to (yes everyone from Malay, to Australian, to Dutch and Chinese are all pro-Obama. Interesting).

Your average breakfast conversation in East Asia :-).

We had a fairly leisurely morning - answered some emails, called the family then ordered room service. We get hungry pretty quick.

After brunch, we headed to the Silk market in Beijing for a shopping extravaganza. We did some research on the market so we were pretty prepared on what we were willing to spend on our 'must have' items. What are the must haves you may ask? They are as follows:

- (2) Chinese silk robes. Yes, 1 for Jon and 1 for Ashley. Do not judge Jon.

- (1) Pair of designer knock of sunglasses to replace the 46 pairs Jon has broken in 2008

- (1) Chopstick set for Jon & Ashley's insatiable desire for sushi

- (1) Cashmere Burberry Scarf for Ashley

(* If you're wondering, the answer is YES. We are only buying things for ourselves :-) )

- (7) Toys or local China things for Jon's nieces and nephews (we lied, we did buy things for other people too)

List in hand we set off for our bargaining. Side note - Jon, having grown up in NY took many trips with his Dad to Chinatown in NYC. That is where he learned the art of negotiation that was in high gear in the Silk Market.

We started our shopping; first up were some knock off Polo shirts Jon had his eye on. Starting price: $60 USD each. Purchase price: $14 for 2.

Next up, silk robes. Starting price: $150 each. Purchase price: $20 for 2. Jon was getting into a groove. They kept saying, you drive hard bargain, why you so cheap!

We went on to purchase a Chopstick set - complete for 6 people including soy sauce dishes. They wanted $75; we paid $14. Jon bought 2 pair of glasses - asking price: $60 ea; purchase price: $14 for 2. We bought a few hand paintings for less than $7 each; a cashmere scarf for $12; items for all Jon's nieces and nephews (7 of them) for less than $15. It was a fantastic day of shopping and bargaining.

We were pretty tired after all this negotiation and cabbed it back to the hotel to get our laptop and head to Starbucks where we're writing this post. In a few hours we'll head to the train station and a 12 hour train ride to Shanghai.

Looking forward to Shanghai. Have a very cool Carbon-Friendly hotel booked in Shanghai. Looks like there are some cool acrobatic shows, fantastic cityscape photo ops and karaoke bars awaiting us in Shanghai.

Til then!

Day 7 - Great Wall & Ming Tombs

Today started out like every other day - an odd breakfast of fried noodles, dried kiwi wedges, larb, and pastries. A classic American breakfast. After detoxing, we headed to the lobby to meet, "Tina", our Chinese English speaking tour guide for the Great Wall and Ming Tombs. Ashley stole 3 more bottles of water from the maid and we were off to northeastern China.

Our driver, the honorable "Mr. Lee", smoothly navigated us through 24 near head-on collisions, 16 pedestrian killings and 11 rear-endings. All the while he insisted on using the horn..guess Mr. Lee always has the right of way.

2 hours later we were at the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. It is a little less touristy than Badaling, the most visited section of the Great Wall from Beijing so we had some pretty cool, non-populated views of the wall.

We took a quick cable car up a good ways (same car President Clinton took in 1998), and started our trek. We were presented the option of walking to the top of Mutianyu, which was ~3 KM from where the cable car dropped us off. We decided to trek it - after all, we're at the Great Wall of China! About 1.8 KM into the trek, we regretted it slightly. It was very steep and riddled with steps designed for small Chinese feet. Not ogre like American feet. Nonetheless, we persevered and made it to the top of Mutianyu. Unbelievably beautiful; the Wall surrounded by gorgeous mountains. And we couldn't have asked for a better day.

After hanging out on top and catching our breath for a little while, we trekked back down to meet the tour bus. We left the wall and headed to a Jade factory that is controlled by the government. We had no say in this and knew about it ahead of time, so we just took it in stride. We had a similar experience in Bangkok earlier this year, but at least this time we knew about it in advance and it was far less shady.


After walking around the Jade factory and oohing and aahing over jade we were presented lunch in the back of the factory. Family style chicken, rice, pork, fish, vegetables and other items we're not sure their origin. It wasn't the best lunch we've had in China. We tried to fill up on rice.

Next up were the Ming Tombs - or portion of the Ming tombs. We walked there for a while and honestly weren't that impressed. Maybe it was just the section we were in, but we had more fun taking silly photos of each other :).


After the Ming tombs we headed to a government run Medical facility. Historically, we all know that Eastern medicine is heavy in herbs, acupuncture, etc and this tour was intended to 'educate' westerners on the importance of Eastern medicine. They herd us all into a medical room and we are presented with some basic information on acupuncture then introduced to a Chinese doctor who can diagnose your ailments within seconds of feeling your pulse. Fascinating. One of our tour group members was examined by the good doctor and told he had a fatty liver, stop drinking beer, lose weight and get in shape. All within a few moments of feeling his pulse. The gentlemen has had Multiple Sclerosis for years now. Interesting the good Chinese doctor didn't diagnose that...

After the medical facility tour we were dropped off at our hotel. Starving, we headed back across the street for Hot Pot, round 2. Beef, noodles and vegetables - yummy.

Pretty tired from our excursion today we're calling it an early night. Off to the Silk Market in the morning, Peking Duck for lunch then a 12 hour train ride to Shanghai tomorrow night!

Day 5 & 6 - Beijing

Day 5 began early with a hotel breakfast. We followed breakfast with a workout in the hotel gym - point to Ashley for suggesting it, really helps with jet lag. After showers and a quick Americanized stop at Starbucks, we set out for the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. The Forbidden City was the imperial palace during the Ming and Qing dynasties and is now known as the Palace Museum. It is the world's largest palace complex and covers 74 hectares. It's surrounded by a six meter deep moat and a ten meter high wall are 9,999 rooms (one less from divine perfection). It was a HUGE place. We ended up getting lost a few times but still managed to find our way around and eventually out. Here are few photos from the Forbidden City:

Afterwards we headed to Tiananmen Square, probably best known for the 1989 protests ending in the death of many rioting college students. It's a very large square, and well, that was about it! Nothing really exciting. We did, however, manage to score a FANTASTIC hat. Here are a few photos from Tiananmen Square and us sporting our new find:

The Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square tired us out a fair bit so we relaxed at the hotel for the evening. Ashley suggested a Hot Pot restaurant that turned out to be OUT OF THIS WORLD!! Its basically fondue with the addition of eastern spices (soya sauce with diced garlic, sliced red peppers and satay broth)...factor in some locally brewed beer and you have the perfect meal. Here are some pictures from dinner:

Went to happy hour at the hotel and were entertained by a man from Florida, who we now think was trying to scam us...he wanted us to go to a market with him the next morning for some special discount shopping- not happening. Overall a good day!

Day 6 began a little slower than day 5; thanks happy hour. Breakfast at the hotel then a tasty lunch at the Oodle noodle restaurant nearby...chicken curry soup, Japanese wanton soup, miso soup and some chicken skewers. Turned out to be way too much food but fantastic none the less. We then headed out to the Olympic sites - Beijing National Stadium (Bird's Nest) and the National Aquatics Center (Water Cube). Pretty cool to see them in person. We weren't able to go inside because you needed tickets and our minuscule amount of Chinese (we're only able to say thank you) proved to not be very helpful in figuring out where we could actually BUY the tickets. There were tons of visitors...little yellow tour guide flags everywhere, all with tickets happily flowing into the stadiums. No worries though, we were happy to people watch and see the sites from the outside. It was actually riddled with scam artists too.

We went back to the hotel and got ready for our evening adventure - The Legend of Kung Fu show in the Red Theatre. It was a theatrical performance of dance and acrobatics - very cool. Apparently it was labeled more energetic than River Dance - hehe.

Headed back to the hotel got room service and called it an early night. Off to the Great Wall tomorrow morning!