China 2

Next we stopped at the Temple of Heaven. This was my favorite place of the day. It was like a big park with a ton of people of all ages hanging out and having a great time. The first thing we see as soon as we walk in is a random dance party going on. Chinese music played as dozens of people danced in pairs or all by themselves, everybody just out there shaking it in their own style. It was GREAT! Win and I got out there immediately and danced with everybody for a good ten minutes. It seriously made me so happy, I just loved watching these people all congregating like this. That is something you just don’t see in the States. Apparently spontaneous dance parties like these are very common in China, especially in the mornings and evenings. People gather in groups to do tai chi or other exercises. We saw a lot of people participating in this same ritual all over China, some with swords, fans, umbrellas, or with no props at all, just out there grooving.

Next we got to this long outdoor corridor where hundreds of people were hanging out, mostly elderly or parents with children. There was a different card or board game going on everywhere you looked. I watched as person after person slapped down a card on the table. There were also many musical groups. People set up music stands, turned on a tape player, and dozen people would stand and sing along. Musicians were also present. Groups of adults could be seen playing the Chinese version of hackey sack, which replaces the sack with a group of feathers weighted at the bottom. It’s a pretty fun toy and I bought one to send to my Vicarious Voyagers. And of course we saw more people dancing, freely and to routines. I love them.

The Temple of Heaven was beautiful as well, and after having a very satisfying day, we headed to the airport to catch our flight to Xi’an. I slept the whole way, and when I woke up, we were there and they were reminding us to get out our passports. Lexi and I looked at each other in a panic… we had both left our passports locked up in our hotel safe, and neither one of us had remembered until that very moment. We were of course very disappointed in ourselves. I was embarrassed and upset that I had done something so irresponsible, especially after making it this far into the voyage without having done so. We informed Jonathan and our trip leaders, the Schoenners. Ooooh the Schoenners. Male Schoenner is our official global studies teacher, meaning pretty much the entire student body hates him and his terribly disorganized class. Female Schoenner is his wife and his the most grating and irritating voice on the planet, just like the scratching of a chalk board, and she always seems to be the one in charge of doing things like passing out passports and yelling directions. Ugh I am cringing thinking about it. Anyways Lexi went up to Mrs. Schoenner and told her we had forgotten them. Her reaction was, “Oh no, I should have reminded you guys this morning I completely forgot!” But Lexi said, no, it was our responsibility, we will deal with it. Fortunately for us, the hotel was able to get our passports out of the safe and someone was immediately on their way to the airport to bring them to us. Before we knew this, however, Lexi and I were sitting quietly while everyone else was checking in. Mrs. Schoenner walked over to us, bent down, and said, “You know we are going to have to report this as an incident to the ship. I don’t know what they are going to do with it, but we are going to report it.” EXCUSE ME? I immediately answered her with respect but in anger that this had nothing to do with anyone else, we weren’t affecting the group at all, it was our own responsibility, but Lexi tapped my leg as if to tell my to calm down, so I shut my mouth. Mrs. Schoenner goes on to say, “I reminded everyone on the bus today that they should have it and everyone heard me.” WHAT? You just told Lexi you forgot to do that! She flat out lied to our faces, and we have no idea why. Lexi’s big blue eyes started pooling with tears as Mrs. Schoenner walked away. I hugged her and said don’t worry about it, but she is just one of those people that reacts badly to people yelling at her, she wasn’t actually upset. But thanks so much for making us feel worse when we are already obviously stressed and upset. They treated everyone like kids the entire damn trip, taking names if you were more than five minutes late and threatening dock time. I hate them both. Mrs. Schoenner apologized to us the next day, which I appreciated, but doesn’t change what she did.

They all take off for the flight and Lexi, Jonathan and I stay behind. The man arrives with our passport and we pay him, $25 each, and run to catch our flight. We make it just as they are doing last call. ONE more minute and we would have missed that flight. We were so lucky and so grateful to Jonathan and everyone that helped us out that day, and so pissed at the Schoenners. She practically glared at us when she saw us on the plane, didn’t say one word to let us know she was glad to see us there. Guess she wishes we had missed it.

We arrive in Xi’an to our hotel, the Tianyu Gloria. Another beautiful hotel in another beautiful city. Xi’an was my favorite city we visited. It was just so clean. I think a huge reason I liked China so much was because it just felt so good to be in civilization again! I mean, I have been in pretty big cities, even huge cities, this entire time, but I guess China felt the most like California crowds to me, the most like a big city, the most like development. It felt nice.

We went to dinner at a dumpling buffet place and it was DELICIOUS. I hope I can find a dumpling buffet near me at home because I can’t get enough of dumplings.

Next morning, off at 8 to begin our day and see the Terra Cotta Warriors! We stopped first at the Lesser Wild Goose Pagoda and the Museum of ancient artifacts and enjoyed some tai chi with swords and fans. I walked around exploring by myself for awhile and enjoyed the beautiful scenery covered in the morning fog.

Another bus ride, and finally we were going to see the Terra Cotta warriors. Yet another wonder of the world I can check off my list. It was a pretty awesome sight. There are four separate pits, one with all fully excavated warriors, and the rest with some partial so we could see what it is actually like to excavate them. Pretty cool. Each one is unique and we got to see four of them very close up.

We went to the inner museum which housed the largest, and most frightening, marionettes in the world. One is a gigantic Terra Cotta soldier holding the hand of a young Chinese girl. His eyes stare menacingly into your soul. We marveled at how creepy they were for quite some time and took pictures of them and with them, then the frenzy of people asking us to take pictures with them happened all over again. Win and I even strategically placed ourselves in front of a group of them once hoping to get asked haha. One guy that went by said, “You are handsome, you are beautiful.” Aw thanks.

We ended our time there at the tea house where we got a free demonstration of how traditional tea is made.

When we got back to the hotel we crossed the street to the mall to go to Dairy Queen, something different, and then to Wal-Mart! Wal-Mart is the devil, I know, but it was crazy to see what a Chinese Wal-Mart looks like. All of the people on all of the products are Asian, which is to be expected but still really strange to see. And the products themselves are totally crazy. All we wanted were some good snacks, but everything is fish and meat flavored. Do they believe in cheese in Asia??? But I did grab some koala snacks, remember those from our youth?

That night we went to a nice dinner at a local theater. After a quality but Americanized Chinese dinner, they put on a great show for us, with many different types of music and traditional dances. Again, pictures and video would serve the purpose of a thousand words here. But the scenery and costumes were immaculate and grand.

After we got back from the show we got ready to go out to Club Salsa, a club which has nothing to do with anything we traditionally think of when the word salsa is said. This night was so quality. We had a group of about ten, but practically everyone else was Chinese. It was a crazy crazy night. Everyone wanted to be our friends, and I didn’t pay for a single drink all night. I also got introduced to a new delicious drink, whiskey and iced tea. Sounds gross, but it is delicious. Even at 11 p.m. we would look around us and see Chinese people passed out all over the place. Guess they go hard there. The music was great and the dance floor was bumping. In between dancing we would go hang out with new groups of friends. Win met our favorite group of the whole night and he dragged us over there to go meet them, about eight guys and one girl. They loved us and we all danced together all night. One of them bought me a rose. Near the end of the night I met these two guys that told me they were soldiers and showed me their IDs haha. The hours flew by and Lexi and PJ and I were the last ones left. I was willing to make it an allnighter that night but when Lexi told me she was ready to go I reluctantly left. What a great night!

The next morning we got to sleep in a little, then visited another temple and headed to a school to take a calligraphy lesson from a teacher. The Chinese language is so complex and puzzling. I just can’t grasp the concepts. At our pre-port for China one of the speakers tried to explain to us about how one word in Chinese can have six different meanings. She said a sentence that sounded like, “She she she she she she she she she she she she she she,” in a bunch of different inflections, then did the English translation which went something like, “Shi-shi fed her rhinoceros on the beach.” Seriously. The calligraphy lesson went kind of like that. The characters originally represented objects, not sounds, and they technically still do today, but I don’t understand how that works. Like my name, Jillian. What images can possibly represent that, and how do they know? All I know is I watched Jonathan texting in Chinese on his phone a couple of times and I am so very glad I don’t have to do that. But I have a cool calligraphy souvenir to bring home.

We went out to lunch at the Xi’an revolving restaurant. We sat down to eat and kept waiting for it to revolve. It never did… because it only revolves at night. Oh.

Finally we went to the Bell Tower and shopped around a little bit. Win and I found this really sweet arcade and watched people play DDR for awhile.

Our final stop was at the Mausoleum for Emperor Jingdi, which was actually really cool. It was like the Terra Cotta warriors on a smaller scale, thousands of small stone people and animals and artifacts buried in there with him. And the way they were exhibited was much cooler than the Terra Cotta exhibit. The floors were glass so you could stand over them and see down into the excavation sites.

Two more great signs here: “Watch out for head,” and “Drunk and improper clothes are not permitted to visit.” I hate drunk clothes.

The toilets in China were my least favorite part. They are squat holes, and without getting into too much detail, they are very very unhygienic and I just kind of stopped going to the bathroom after awhile.

Flight from Xi’an to Shanghai, remembered my passport this time.

I am so exhausted, but looking at that fantastic Shanghai skyline I know I have to go out. Hannah calls me and we get a group together to hit up a karaoke place. Our taxi starts out following their taxi, but then suddenly we are following a taxi with three black people in it. Not them. So we get out and start walking. But we can’t find it, it is getting so late and I am so tired, so we hitch a ride back to the ship. Epic fail. But at least I got to walk around the city at night, it is fantastic, especially right along the water. The next night before we took off I sat and watched the neon lights of the boats pass by as the buildings flashed millions of different colors at me from hundreds of feet in the air.

The next morning I woke up early for a 7 a.m. departure for an FDP to Suzhou with my art teacher Fred Levine. This was the PERFECT FDP for me on this day. It was an hour and a half busride there, and I needed every second of that ride to catch up on sleep. We went to several different gardens which allowed me a lot of time for personal reflection. I also didn’t know too many people on the FDP which was also perfect because the only person I wanted to hang out with was me. We went to the University of Suzhou which was very pretty and took a boat ride down the river that some famous guy once referred to as “the Venice of the East.”

Good sign from one of the gardens: “Civilized behavior of tourists is another bright scenery.” And, “Give the grass a little love, the grass will reward you with an extension of green.”

I slept the whole way home and got back on the boat after spending six amazing days in colorful China.

Tomorrow, Japan. This is basically our last port. After this it is a month of school and basically a countdown till home. I expect to love Japan, and I am especially excited to be traveling with Hannah as it is rare that it happens and I am madly in love with her. We bought our bullet train passes and have a tentative schedule set up. Hiroshima, Kyoto, Tokyo for two days, Yokohama. But we currently have no reservations at any hostels. So we will see how that goes.

I’m not worried about it, honestly. I’ve realized that things just have a way of working themselves out.