Shinkansen! (Japan Part 1)

So I just got back from Japan. Yeah. Japan. It just might be the coolest country in the world. Since I am in finals and would like a little distraction each day, I think I will have a new blog about each day of my travels in Japan.

After the excitement of finishing my musical (that's another blog in itself), 2 projects, a final exam, a paper, and my Citi employment forms (for the most part), I was SO ready for my Japanese adventure. We had an early flight on Saturday morning to Nagoya from which we got to ride the bullet train (Shinkansen in Japanese) to Tokyo! When we first stepped off the plane, I shouted out of excitement, "HELLO Tokyo!" (even though we were in Nagoya, whoops!) I thought everything was beautiful already. We then had to figure out how to get to the Nagoya station via subway, not too difficult. At the Nagoya station, we had our first meal of sushi and the waitress was lovely. I assumed everyone didn't speak any English so I had the phrasebook all ready to go - "okanjo-o-kud-a-sai!" (check, please!) She laughed and said, "You speak very good Japanese!" Then we got on the train and I was SOOO pumped because my dad always talked about how cool the bullet train was and it was. I loved just looking out the window as we passed all the rice paddies and little houses. Once we arrived in Tokyo, we were given instructions by our friend Daniel (who was had already been in Tokyo a day) to meet him at the Hachiko dog statue in Shibuya. Well, we somehow made it to Shibuya and it was INSANE! There were so many people and we couldn't figure out how to get out of the station. Laura got so overwhelmed she just stopped in the middle of the bustling crowd and starting crying/laughing with a tomato red face saying, "I can't get out of the way! I can't get out of the way!" So finally we figure out how to get out of the way and out of the station. We get out, and there are MORE people, EVERYWHERE! in all sorts of outfits, chic, high fashion, goth, punks, children, kimonos. So we cross the street with everyone and we're looking for the dog statue. So we decided to ask these young guys we think may speak enough English. They figure out we're talking about a dog and point back toward where we had come from so we go back across the street. Well we're about 20 minutes late and this dog seems to be THE meeting place. There must have been hundreds of people around this silly little dog statue and we could not find Daniel so we watched the crazy, exaggerated people of Tokyo a bit and then decided to just go explore. Daniel said if we didn't find him, we could just meet him at the hostel. So we go diagonally across the street with everyone else because this is a cool looking area and we need a beer (or as they say in Japan - biiru). Everything was so eye-stimulating. We couldn't stop saying, "what is this place? what is going on? who are these people? this is crazy! this is AMAZING!" Turns out, Shibuya Crossing is THE busiest pedestrian crossing IN THE WORLD! Anyway, we found this really cool place, no english, and it's kind of expensive, but oh well! As much as we wanted to keep exploring, we figured we should find Daniel. We manage to get the subway to our hostel and meet up with Daniel. Our hostel, the Ace Inn, was AWESOME! We each had our own "cubbie hole." It was clean, convenient and had free internet, but the keyboard was a pain because my emails would become Japanese characters randomly and I couldn't figure out how to fix it and I didn't want to be the stupid girl that couldn't figure it out because no one else seems to be typing like a turtle, so my first e-mail was just a long string of letters!

That night we were looking for a restaurant near our hotel. After one failure at a yakitori place that had no English menu, we ended up at the local fast food place. It wasn't bad, but oh well. Afterward, we went to this art exhibit that was on the 53rd floor of a big building to get a view of Tokyo at night. It was definitely a date place. So many couples! We slept well that night after all our travels and looked forward to our breakfast in a cute cafe like we've made travel tradition!

How'd that get there?

So I just realized I some how got a mosquito bite on my left buttock. They're tricky little devils. It is a nuisance.

A Girl's Trip to HCMC

So remember I went to visit John and Leslie in Shanghai? Well they have done quite a bit of traveling in Asia so they were curious where my next adventure would be. When I proudly announced we had found plane tickets to Saigon for $1506HK, John responded unenthusiastically, "Yeah, but Saigon's such a dump. You should go to Hanoi." True, Hanoi would be nice, but unfortunately on a exchange student budget, it wasn't going to work, so instead I justified Saigon with, well, it's still Vietnam and it's still a new place to me!

John was right though, it was a bit of a dump. Architecture is non-existent. Buildings are just 3 to 4-story concrete row buildings with gaudy bright pink, periwinkle blue, mint green, lemon yellow facades that make them look like life-size Barbie houses. Even the Reunification Palace was just...meh. On our city tour there weren't even enough culturally or authentically Vietnamese sights to fill up an afternoon. We had to go to China Town to look at some temples! Nevertheless, I really came to like this dumpy town in a weird way. Probably because Saigon has really delicious food and we did some good relaxing and luxuriating. It took good care of us.

This was the first time Laura and I traveled by ourselves. We were meeting a group of boys at a hotel we had all booked ahead of time. We successfully arrived at our "luxurious" hotel on Thursday night. We a TV with MTV Asia (no CNN though), clean sturdy towels (that smelled a little like mesquite), and a REAL shower! with a glass door! All for $28/night, $14/person! The next day we got up early and of course found ourselves a cafe to have breakfast. Cafes are big in SE Asia which makes us happy. We quickly made friends with the waiters and waitresses of course and promised we'd be back the next morning (which we were!). We decided that we should probably try to get in touch with the boys if we were supposed to be going to the tunnels that day. Getting in touch with the boys was a little more difficult than we'd expected. We first tried a letter under their door. No response. We then tried to call on of their rooms. The person who answered sounded like he didn't speak English and claimed to not know a Laura Gayle. We tried another room...and, finally! someone remembered we were coming to meet them. "Are we going to the tunnels today?" "Uh...I don't know, I think I'm still drunk from last night...maybe this afternoon."

Well, Laura and I had not come all the way to HCMC to sit around in our hotel with only 3 full days to explore! We headed to the front desk to ask about going to the tunnels in the afternoon. "Tunnels? No tunnels now. Tunnels at 8:30 tomorrow." "But what about 1 PM?" "No tunnels now. Tomorrow morning!" Okay then! So we ditched the boys and took a guided private city tour (in an airconditioned car, yeah!). It was rather anticlimactic. We tried multiple times to ask our war vet guide, Son, what made Saigon special/unique or where the "downtown" was. And everytime, he'd change the subject! But, the War Remnants Museum, while disturbing, was quite powerful. That night we did manage to find a bit of "downtown." We had some marginal French food (actually I had bolognaise, when do I not?). Then we went looking for this bar in the guide book and ended up on some dark streets then popped up by the animae club we had seen in Lonely Planet, but decided we weren't really feeling the animae club scene considering it was roped off with a red velvet rope. We wandered some more and ended up finding a really nice local lounge where we watched a few older white men flirt awkwardly with young Vietnamese girls. Laura and I thoroughly enjoy people watching and speculating about their stories and what brought them to Asia. When we were done, we didn't want to walk all the way back to our hotel, so we hired 2 motorbike drivers to take us back to our hotel. Even though we were only going straight the whole time, I was scared shitless! At least I could say I did it!

The next day we had already booked a tour of the Mekong River Delta which sounds really cool right? Well...it was just alright, but luckily I was in a great mood so it was really fun. On Turtle Island, Laura touched some bees and ate some of the honey off the comb (I'm deathly afraid of bees, so I wouldn't do it). Then we held a big boa constrictor which made for a cool picture on Dragon island. We tried a lot of tropical fruit and watched a little local band on Unicorn island. Finally, we went on a little sampan down onto Phoenix island and watched how coconut candy was made. I took a funny coconut picture!


We got back to the hotel pretty early so we decided to do some city exploring. To get to the antique street the our Mekong guide had recommended we check out, we had to cross this enormous round-about (so big there was a public park in the middle where a bunch of people were just hanging out; people in HCMC seem to just be "hanging out" a lot). Crossing a single street is an accomplishment in itself in this city with its 3 million motorbikes, but crossing a roundabout in like 5 different places with no stop lights...now that is a miracle. Everytime Laura and I successfully crossed a street, I said to her, "There is a God." The antique street was sillily expensive so I just took pictures of the people hanging out on the street playing card games. They didn't appreciate it. We then decided to go to this place Pho 24 to have an "authentic bowl" of Vietnamese pho and who else do we see, but...Bill Clinton!

Just kidding! But he really had been there a few years back. Afterward we had the BEST MASSAGES EVER! Laura had a 75 minute foot massage while I had a 75 minute back massage (for $12USD and they take USD in Vietnam! hahahahahaha!). It was really awkward at first because all the other massages I have had in Asia have been with some sort of robe on, not with oils and stuff, so I thought that's how this one would be, but then she starts trying to pull off my shirt, so I take off my shirt. Then she's pointing at my shorts! And I'm like, "Whoa there honey! I don't even know your name!" But pretty soon I was standing in my underwear while she's just standing there, not the privacy you get at a day spa in the US, but hey! it's Vietnam! So then she climbs on the table and she's squatting over my lower back rubbing in all the lotion! I was so confused and at the same time freaking out about my purse and wallet because someone took my purse for me while I was changing and here I am naked under this little Vietnamese woman, completely vulnerable. So at first it wasn't very relaxing, but then it was just so good, I didn't care.

That night we went to this awesome Vietnamese restaurant that was so well decorated and the food was so good and cheap. It was still early so we went to get drinks at this cute outdoor restaurant with pretty hanging lights from the trees we had seen on our way to and from the hotel. We were enjoying our wine and chocolate cake when we saw...dun dun dun...a HUGE FREAKING RAT! We were all girlish and squealy, pulling our feet up on the chair. Needless to say, we got out of there just as quick as can be.

The next day we did the tunnels finally. We used a different tour service this time that was half the price of the other tour service we had used. When the bus rolled up, it all made sense. We were on this hot, gross bus for about an hour and a half to get to these tunnels. We made this silly stop at "Handicrafts by Handicaps" and the guide said, "We stop here for 10 to 5 minutes for go bathroom." (and of course buy something while you're at it) And some guy on our bus thought the guide said 25-minutes and goes, "that's a long-ass shit." Laura and I found the comment exceedingly hilarious.

The tunnels were "quite disappointing" (as Maud would say). Maybe because most of the time they referred to the Americans as "little devils" and "demons"? Even beyond that though, there were just a lot of people and the being in the tunnel itself was cramped and claustrophobic people behind you were freaking out about getting out and there was nothing you could do because there were people in front of you. We made it back and decided to end our day in luxury at the Hotel Caravel's pool. Lonely Planet (our savior for this trip) said it would be $11USD to enjoy their pool...WRONG! It was $23, but we decided whatever. So we used ALL the services we could. We lounged by the pool, swam, used the nice toilets, used the hot tub, sauna, steam room, showers, shampoo, conditioner, blow dryers, mints, lotion, toothbrushes, toothpaste, everything! It was lovely. We enjoyed a nice last meal at a little Italian place in the backpacker area.

Even though the sites themselves weren't as exciting as Thailand or China (or Japan as you'll hear about next!), it was a great girl's getaway and chance for us to prove to ourselves we had become damn good travelers without guides.

A Wonderful Surprise!

I have been a really busy bee and quite tired since I got back from Vietnam so I unfortunately have not yet been up to writing a new blog. But this past weekend was a very special weekend and I must share!

My dad was coming to HK to check out some hotels in Macau so I was really excited to get to see him for a day and a few dinners. On Saturday night, I went to the JW Marriott to meet him. I sat in the lobby and then finally I saw him come out of the elevator..."Dad! So good to see you! I'm so happy you came!" My dad laughs, "Did you even see the surprise I brought you?" And there was MOM! She wasn't supposed to be able to come to HK because she was very busy at work, but there she was!! She flew all the way to HK just to see me for 2 days! It was the best surprise of my life! We had a great dinners at swanky restaurants. I showed them the UST campus. We walked all over my favorite streets in Central. Had high tea at the Peninsula! (so classy) Rode the Star Ferry. Explored the Peak (though it was cloudy...). Shopped our brains out! Ate dim sum at a very local place. Had happy hour margaritas! And ate more! We were able to see so much and spend a lot of great time together. I will never be able to thank them enough for that amazing surprise. I love my parents! Wish you could have been here too Ffej : )

Soon I'll write about Vietnam. Today I'm going to the Olympic torch relay. That's pretty cool. It's raining though, oh well! Max Rubin is here as part of his Asian adventure. I have to go choreograph for musical theater now. That class will be another post in itself! Get excited!

PS I'm going to JAPAN!

Shanghai

Very early Monday morning, I said bye bye to the Swissotel Beijing and jumped in a cab to the airport to make my way to Shanghai to visit with my parents' friend from high school (yes, high school!) Leslie and her husband John. When I had visited Leslie and John during the summer, they described Shanghai as cultureless and money-hungry. So I thought, "Why would I ever want to go there!?!" When it turned out I had a few extra days before spring break was over, I decided, I might as well see it now while I'm in Asia, even if it sucks. And I am SO glad I did.

The flight was easy and I arrived around 10 AM to meet Leslie and Mr. Wong, their wonderful driver. Leslie knew that of course I would want to see The Bund, which is the famous street you always see in pictures of Shanghai with all the old, western style marble and brick architecture. What's so cool about it is that on the other side of the river are all the crazy, futuristic spaceship/bottle opener looking buildings! I just loved the old and the new of Shanghai! We went to this super cool place for lunch that had outdoor seating and an amazing view of the Bund. Like a silly tourist, I took a million pictures and probably totally embarrassed Leslie and her friend May who joined us. Afterward, they took me to the Fabric Market where you could literally have ANYTHING made. I was dying. The coats, the suits, the dresses, skirts, robes, tops, were soooo cute and such good quality! but I didn't have time...or money for that matter! Then they took me to the fake stuff market, which apparently the English translation of is Treasure Market. I got a beautiful "Ferragamo" - real leather. Shanghai has the best shopping. Around 4:30 PM, Leslie says, "How does bolognese sound?" It was like she read my mind. I hadn't had a homecooked meal of bolognese in AGES! Let me tell you. It was SO nice to stay in a HOME with a kitchen and your own bathroom, a television, and couch to read on. Before dinner, we went for a walk in their neighborhood in the French Concession. It's a great area because all the buildings are very low. They're all about 3 stories tall and made of brick (reminded me of Boston a little). The streets are windy. (not like breezy, like twisty) They're are lots of trees and parks. So many great looking cafes, restaurants and cute little boutiques. I loved this area. Cultureless? At this point, I had no idea what John and Leslie had been talking about! We headed back and I read my amazing book, Eat, Pray, Love, for a while, then Leslie taught me how to make Cosmos - Mandarin Oriental style. 3 shots of cranberry juice, 2 shots of Absolut citron, 1 shot of Cointreau, 1 shot of fresh squeezed lemon juice. I can't wait to make it for everyone when I get back! They were superb. Then I ate about a ton of bolognese and I'm sorry Dad, but this may have been a tie for first with yours! After dinner, we entertained each other with travel stories and shared music. It was a great, really relaxing night!

The next morning, Mr. Wong drove May, Leslie and me to Xitang, a small water town an hour and a half outside of Shanghai. What's cool about these old water towns is a) they're like Asia's answer to Venice (with the little boats and stuff) b) they are pretty well preserved examples of life during old dynasties like the Ming. We just walked in and out of little shops along the canal, under the "covered walk way" that this town in particular is famous for. Each homeowner is responsible for maintaining their portion of the roof and they all do a very good job of it! I got one of those LONG skirts that's really bright and has a tie-dyed bottom and a wall hanging for RUBENSTEIN (woo!) that's navy blue and has fish on it. I like animals. Soooo good! Oh! I forgot to mention that Mr. Wong joined us and was absolutely, adorably ecstatic the whole time. Before dinner, Leslie and I had a 1 hour Chinese, full body massage, and a 1 hour foot massage for $24 USD! in a really nice spa! Freaking amazing! Then we went to this delicious restaurant for Peruvian tapas and white sangria. Mmm... How I miss good ethnic food when I'm in Hong Kong! Shanghai has the BEST food! Over dinner, Leslie convinced me that I should do a 6 month program to learn Putonghua (Mandarin). So we started talking about whether I should do it in Beijing or Shanghai. Apparently Beijing has the nice accent, if you do it in Shanghai, you may develop a Shanghainese accent which is not so pleasant, but I really loved Shanghai, so I decided I'll take the Shanghainese accent. I don't know that I'm ready to live in Beijing yet. So I guess all I have to do now is find an employer that will send me to China for 6 months!

On my last day, Leslie took me to the antique market. Basically, it's just a bunch of people's junk they try to tell you is really "rare" or "old" so that you'll pay a mint, but it really is AMAZING STUFF! Everything I saw I wanted to buy and put in my future house. I kept thinking, "When I buy a house, I'm also going to buy a plane ticket back to Shanghai so that I can come to this street and buy all my home furnishings!" I bought a "real silver" elephant tea pot and a four-faced Buddha. See! At first the woman said, "450 RMB for you!" And I was like, "Woman! Are you crazy!?!" So she said, "OK, OK, how much you want, you tell me how much you want," handing me a calculator to punch in my desired price...but I only have about 140 RMB with me at this point. So I see the Buddha, she says, "150!" I punch in 80, she says okay. So I get it. Then we're walking away, and Leslie says, "She said she'd give you the elephant for 200, you sure you don't want to go back?" Yes....I did want to go back. I HAD to have that tea pot! So the merchant says, "You can use card! Come with me." So we follow her through this alley, upstairs in this sketchy building, to a guy sitting in what looks like a toll booth. And wouldn't you know! They take VISA at the antique market in Shanghai! Then, we went to see the bird/cat/dog/turtle/cricket/mealworm market. It was so silly and super loud! The crickets are the scariest. Leslie says they fight them, like dog or cock fights, only they're crickets. Afterward, we walked to a delicious dumpling restaurant called Din Tai Fung to meet John and his secretary, Sammy, whom he and Leslie call their "adopted daughter." It was yummy! Then I found out that there is one in Hong Kong AND one in Los Angeles!! Hurray! Oh! and did I mention that my flight back to Hong Kong was NONEXISTENT!?! Yes. Luckily, John had been nice enough to have Sammy check on my flight, only to find that that flight didn't run on Wednesdays! I guess I still have a lot to learn about travel...but anyway, it worked out, and I got back to Hong Kong, happy as a clam and full of ENERGY, around 10 PM. (I wore my big magenta skirt to school the next day.)

I don't know what it was really. Maybe it was the "luxury" of a nice hotel, or having parents planning stuff for us to do, or a home to stay in, or cabs and drivers, or sleeping about 10 hours a night, or reading my life-changing book (oh! how I wish it never ended!), but China reenergized and rejuvenated me. It was the first time in a while I had completely let go of "work" and just enjoyed and soaked up every moment. I finally felt really fortunate/glad/proud to be abroad in Asia. I finally felt I had made the right decision. Leslie even helped me to start appreciating those things about Asian culture I didn't liked at first, like hanging your laundry out the window to dry. Whatever it was, the second half of my semester abroad has begun and I'm really looking forward to what is to come! Stay tuned for Vietnam! (Coming next week)

CHINER! Part II

On our third day, we went to the Temple of Heaven. Granted, after seeing the Forbidden City and all the palaces/temples, cool architecture, crazy sea rock gardens, and pretty trees there, the Temple of Heaven itself is just kind of...meh, but I am SO glad we went there on that Saturday, because like I've said before Chinese people are happy! And happy Chinese senior citizens, playing, singing, and dancing in the huge park surrounding the Temple of Heaven on a Saturday makes you VERY happy to watch. We saw old couples practicing the tango, grandmas performing with ribbon dancers, singing choirs of the elderly, it was absolutely amazing to see such pure joy - the joy of a little kid - in the eyes of an older person.

We then went to lunch at this great Chinese restaurant. They even served crickets if you so desired. Apparently they're a real specialty in China. Unfortunately, some food we had had in prior days was getting the best of me, so I wasn't in the best mood at lunch. You can guess how happy I was when this smelly, Asian tourist/business man in a pink button-down wanted to take a picture with Laura and me just because we were Americans.

That night we had an interesting experience for dinner. We asked the concierge for a recommendation for a French place for dinner. He got us a reservation. We arrived to an empty restaurant called Maxim's later that night. Maxim's is, by the way, the name of the catering chain that runs one of our campus canteens. Needless to say, Laura and I were a bit nervous. There were about 10, maybe 12, waiters for just our table, yet only one guy could wait on us because he was the only one who spoke English. Despite the gawdiness and emptiness, the food was quite good (I tried escargot...and liked it!) and there was even a live pianst. After a glass or two of wine, I wanted to make friends with the waiter. I asked him what his name was, but then he ran away! Laura and her parents teased me that I'd scared him away or said something offensive. Luckily, he came back after 15 minutes and told us his name and that he was studying language (English and Spanish) at university. I guess he DID understand when Laura's mom said, "si! por favor!" We all had a tendency to speak Spanish when the locals tried to speak to us in Mandarin since it was the only other language we all sort of knew.

On our last day in Beijing, we went to the Summer Palace, where yet again, apparently the emperor prayed to the gods for good harvests or something and signed important documents. It was a warm, sunny day; perfect for seeing a summer palace. It was a beautiful place and nice to see that the "people" really do use it for recreation - paddlin around on the paddle boats, walking, having picnics, etc. Our particularly favorite/least favorite part was the marble boat. We learned that apparently, Empress Cixi took money from the military to build this silly marble boat that doesn't even float! It just was build on top of a cement platform that juts out into the water, but is connected to the land. Seriously the silliest thing I've ever heard of. Other than that...I had some delicious hot chocolate and flower tea and finally found that blue bracelet (the one I'd talked about in the earlier blog about the "not so ladylike market") for only 20RMB about $3USD (Renminbi IS the same as the yuan as Laura and I recently found out and in case you were wondering, it mean's "people's money").

That night we ate at this local Italian place, Annie's, recommended to us by the hotel. While the food was REALLY good and REALLY cheap, China's REALLY gotta work on service. When we arrived at 7:32PM, they told us that they did not have a table for our 7:30PM reservation because we were late and that now we'd just have to wait. We waited, and waited, and waited...until about 8:05 PM. In all that time, why hadn't they at least offered us drinks or something? Traveling in Asia definitely teaches you to have patience. I then wrote them a little "evaluation" on how I thought they could improve their service. Someday, someday, they'll get it.

The next morning, I was off to Shanghai!

CHINER! Part I

Yes...Chiner. As Laura and I were so fortunate to live in luxury for a few days at the Swissotel (yep, Swissotel, no h) Beijing, on the tab of her parents (love ya George and Jean!), we also were lucky enough to get to watch a lot of BBC and CNN, which is not possible in our halls in HK since we don't know how to change the channels from Cantonese to English. Even though were not able to see any news on Tibet (as the "big brother" Chinese government would literally BLACK OUT anything related to Tibet, the TV would just go freaking blank, they really do not like the Dalai Lama), we did begin to notice that almost every anchor on these channels have some sort of exotic accent, whether it be British, Middle Eastern, French, etc., and they all pronounce China, Chiner. "We're seeing a lot of growth still here in stocks in Chiner..." Stop saying that damnit! It's ChinA!

Anyway, our first night was hilarious. Poor Laura's parents had already had a bad experience the night before with some bad, unfriendly to foreigners', restaurant, and then here we are, dropped off by our taxi in the middle of some traditional Beijing hutongs (really OLD little villages with narrow alleys, very dark, no street lights) with no idea where this "famous" roast duck restaurant is supposed to be. Then, ah ha! we see scrawled on the brick wall next to us, a chalk drawing of a duck with an arrow! So we followed the ducks and there we were! We had quite a lovely dinner. I saw a bunch of pictures of famous people on the wall, so I figured this place must be a big deal even though it looked like a shithole. So I insisted the owner take a picture with us. He then proceeded to teach us how to say the name of his restaurant in Chinese. "Lee ChOOn"... (Laura and I repeat), "Roast Duck" (Laura and I repeat), "Restaurant." Then I think to myself, wait a minute...I should be teaching YOU - Mr. Li Qun - how to say "roast duck restaurant!" That's my language! The bathroom or should I say "toilet" was also fun. Here, I'll just let you check it out.
The next morning we made our way to the Forbidden City and were fortunate enough to find ourselves a guide! We still don't know what her name was, but we loved her. I think it may have started with an M. Let's call her May. May was a very experienced guide. She never let us get sidetracked. She was always making sure we were paying attention - "Okay, everyone, everyone, look me, look me!" She gave us butterfly hair clips when we answered a question right. "If it cloudy and cannot use sun for clock, how emperor know time?" I, after reading the information block, reply, "Uh...water?" "Ahhh...very clever girl!!" And yes, I got my butterfly clip. She even held my hand when we were among tour groups in their little red/blue/white/ yellow baseball hats, worried that, "she so small! don't want to lose her! she so small! don't want lose her!" She was also quite the feminist, making it quite clear that when Empress Cixi was in the Forbidden City, it was "phoenix over dragon, female over male, empress over emperor, woman over man." And...how can I forget, the last emperor PUYI. She loved his story so much, she told us twice! "When last emperor Puyi come to power, only small boy, bring him out for people to see, all people say 'long live emperor! long live emperor!' and little boy Puyi so scared he urine and shit in the pants! He so scared he urine and shit in the pants!" I'm beginning to think the Chinese think "shit" is the politically correct term for #2. Speaking of shit, this day I also had my first experience with the no door, waist-high divider squatters.

Afterward, we went to Tiananmen Square. It was huge. I took some pictures under Mao's portrait. What a guy. Oh and he's mausoleum was apparently open 8AM to 12 AM. When we got there around 4PM it was closed. They're still working on the AM/PM.

The next day, I went the GREAT WALL OF CHINA. Doesn't that just sound crazy? Yeah! Laura's mom had arranged for a van to drive us to Mutianyu, "in its dramatic hilly setting and less intrusive tourist industry" (DK Eyewitness Travel Guide). We immediately fell in love with Driver Leo. He was so smiley. Actually, we had a few drivers that were really smiley. This is one of the reasons I really liked Beijing. People are genuinely happy. While at first it seemed Driver Leo spoke great English, we soon realized these were somewhat 'programmed responses.' After we had trekked along the Great Wall which was really amazing and still had snow on it (oh how I pined for Boston!), despite the embarrassing American students throwing snowballs at old ladies, Driver Leo said, "Now, we have lunch at restaurant 17 kilometers away, about 10 minutes." Laura's mom asks, "Isn't there that town we passed through that had lots of restaurants?" After a few seconds, Driver Leo responds, "Now, we have lunch at restaurant 17 kilometers away, about 10 minutes." Oh well, lunch was good.

That night we had an excellent Italian meal, better than any Italian I had had in Hong Kong. After dinner, Laura and I still had a lot of energy, so we went for a walk. After passing up the opportunity to go to Hooters Beijing, we decided a nice bottle of cheap wine from 7-Eleven would do. Unfortunately, we couldn't find a 7-Eleven, but we did find a Chinese grocery store where we also found GREAT WALL wine and Chips Ahoy, our favorite traveling snack. So we thought, what better way to end our day at the Great Wall than with Great Wall wine. So we did, and it was awful by the way.