the great wall of china.

Yesterday morning was one I'll always remember. Growing up and learning about The Great Wall I'd always tell myself that I was going to visit there someday. I never thought that day would be when I was 22 and living here!

The other day we ran into a lady who hooked us up with a tour guide who spoke English and a car that would take us to the Wall. They picked us up early that morning and it only took us about an hour to drive there. Another side note, it's freezing here! I was not loving the cold but once we got hiking I warmed up. Freezing though for me was in the 50's so I'm gonna die coming back to Utah!!

When driving towards the mountains they reminded me of Utah and I loved it! As we started getting closer you would look closely and what looked like rocks in weird zig zag lines was the Great Wall! 

I'm not sure exactly which part we hiked but it was fun!! They have certain tours that you can do and we only did a very very VERY small portion of it. 

That thing is so stinkin hard to climb!! You climb stairs, but they aren't all even, and sometimes you felt like you were lunging to climb them! There's my workout for the week;) haha

Every so often they had these little fort-like buildings that you could stop at and take pictures. If I remember right there were about 5 or 6 total until we made it to the top. For some reason I thought the Great Wall was more long and you just walk across it. But nope. You hike UP.

The weather warmed up on the hike up so it was perfect fall weather. And absolutely gorgeous!! It took us about 2 hours to get to the very top and back. Coming down was hard on my knees and I felt like an old woman trying to go down! Haha

One of my favorite parts of Beijing are all the foreigners! While hiking we met some girls from Russia, a group of men from Pakistan, and another group from India. Of course the men asked to take a picture with me. It was funny because one of the Indian men told me that I looked exactly like his girlfriend that lived in Switzerland so he had to take a picture to send to her. I'm not really sure if I believe that story though hahah We had a lot of people ask if we were students from Germany because I guess there were a lot of German tour groups. I also had a lot of people ask if I was Swedish! I guess it's the blonde hair.

The Great Wall really was stunning and I still can't believe I'm here in China! Crazy exciting things have been able to happen with this experience and I wouldn't want it any other way.

loves.

pearl market.

I love these things!! There are about 4 stories with booths set up EVERYWHERE! People are selling purses, table cloths, table runners, shoes, watches, pearl necklaces, pearl anything, things with Mao face on it... Basically anything you want! I loved being able to bargain with people because we could get things sooo cheap! If they didn't like my price I would start walking away then they yell at you to come back and they'll make a deal.

One funny story I have is that my good friend Arie and her sister want Converse shoes. You can get them cheap! There's a website here called Taobao and you literally can find anything! I was going to get them off of there but decided to try the pearl market first.

I made it to the 3rd level with all the shoes. I kept seeing shoes that looked like Converse, but were ugly knockoff brands. I made it to one stand and picked up a pair to see if they were real or not. They lady told me that they were the real deal and I was like, "uhhh nope!" I told her I wanted real Converse All-Star. She told me she had them. Clearly I didn't believe her and started walking away. She grabbed my arm and stopped me. Whipped this paper out of nowhere with real Converse on it.

I said what style and sizes I needed then she called her friend. After about 10 minutes some lady pops out of nowhere and has the 4 red pairs of shoes I asked for. I was stunned! The lady originally told me the price would be 1,200 Yuan which is $200 in the U.S. Heck no I'm not paying that much!! I might as well buy them at home. After going back and forth for a while I got them down to 400 Yuan. $65 for 4 pairs of Conver All-Stars. Usually you can get one pair for that price! I am so good at bargaining.

I started walking away and was next to the booth next to hers when I stopped to double check the sizes and everything. Good thing Arie and I have the same shoe size so I tried on her shoes. People in China keep popping out of nowhere I swear. These two men come walking up to me and ask where I purchased the shoes. Uh oh!!! I acted like I had no idea but he kept asking me. I thought he was gonna do something to me so I told him which booth. I ran out of that area so fast!! I probably got that lady fired.. Oops. 

I did get my shoes though so I was happy:) haha I am such a terrible person.

loves.

the forbidden city and tiananmen square.

So I'll be completely honest.. Tiananmen Square was really cool to visit because of all the history behind it! It's sad because the people here don't know what really happened here, and they never will. It's basically against the law. So we had to be careful with what we said about it. I liked being there because of the history, but after almost getting trampled to death (which still makes me laugh so freaking hard) it wasn't the best thing ever. I'm sorry if anyone is offended that I wasn't in love!

After Tiananmen Square we headed over to the Forbidden City. Because of stupid APEC the lines were a joke!! So you wait in so many lines and things become not worth it. We went inside one of the outer gates, but we didn't make it all the way into the Forbidden City. I was a little disappointed but not completely butt hurt about it.

slammed into doors and people.

I'm not quite sure what is wrong with me, but I am a very lucky person that gets slammed hard into things. Yesterday morning when we arrived at the train station in Quenzhou, we had to wait for the ticket office to open. We were first in line next to the sliding doors. People started gathering behind us and slowly shoving towards the front. 7:05 hits, and people start prying the doors open. I literally was body slammed into one of the doors, then slowly creeped around it to make it inside. Asians don't know how to wait!! I was laughing so hard as all these people were running past me. Like, holy crap guys! You'll get your freaking tickets. That was a great start to this trip.

Another story about slamming into people, literally makes me laugh out loud as I'm typing this. So we took the subway to go see Tiananmen Square, and the Forbidden City. Clearly we have no clue what's going on, but we just know we have to cross the busy street to get to them. We find that a butt load of people are lining up behind this fence to get over there. They only let so many go across the street at a time because there's another line forming on the other side for security. 

You don't stand in line like you do in the states. You are pinned up against everyone around you and there are no such things as personal bubbles. I ended up lying on some guys shoulder because I couldn't move! Haha After an hour we finally made it to the front, and people are constantly shoving you. The guard opens the gate and let's people start crossing.. Holy poop!!! All hell broke lose. I took one step forward and I almost died! People screaming at you in what sounds like twenty different languages and you are just trying to cross the dang street! People were falling left and right and I almost went down with the gate. I somehow started spinning to keep my balance and barely made it out without eating it on my face.

I turned around to see if any of the other girls made it out alive and I only saw Hannah laying on the ground on the fence. Emily comes bursting through a crowd laughing hysterically, and randomly Kelli and Taelor came walking out. She had her hands in her pockets and when everybody started shoving she slowly fell and couldn't get her hands out to catch herself. You can only imagine how that looked when I turned around and saw her lying on the ground with her hands in her coat pocket.

We literally have had so many crazy things happen to us while we have been in China but we laugh so hard every time we bring them up and they are hands down the best memories ever.

loves.