We woke up bright and early at 5:30 the next morning for our flight at 8:20 to Shenyang (industrial city in the NW, population ~4 million), where our friend from Knox, Brian, lives. However, due to pollution and snow causing low visibility, our flight was delayed about 3 hours. :-( Wish we could have slept later instead of just pittering it away in the airport. Anyhoo, we arrived in Shenyang and thankfully, Brian was there to pick us up. He took us to his family's apartment, which is really nice for China standards, and then we just kinda drove around the rest of the day looking for travel agents, which didn't work out. Later that evening, Brian dropped us off at a shopping street downtown while he had to spend some time with his girlfriend. We froze our butts off!! I definitely wasn't dressed warm enough -- learned real quick that night that I'd be wearing my long underwear everyday the rest of the trip in China! And the scarf that Ike's grandma had sent me for Christmas! We took refuge in a shopping mall for awhile and also in a McD's to get a warm peach pie! Our first impresssions of China were that it was very crowded, polluted (our throats started burning within the first few hours from the pollution), and lots of loudspeakers annoyingly broadcasting who knows what sort of random propaganda or advertising to everyone. After getting nice and frozen walking around the shopping street, Brian and Camellia picked us up and took us to an amazing dinner. This was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip!! Camellia asked for a huge table, and the minimum to order was 400RMB for this table (about $55). This goes a long way in chinese restaurants!! So we got to order all kinds of things. Ike and I tried beef "pizzle" (penis), frog meat, chicken heads, aorta, kidney, liver, silkworms, chicken throat, etc and it was all AMAZING!! I really liked the spice and flavor of the food. Ike and I continued to be impressed by the food the whole trip -- yummy! Both Japan and Korea also have great food, but we think we were impressed by the Chinese because it isn't quite so healthy -- nice for a change! :-) We went to bed pretty exhausted that night.
Beef "pizzle" or penis. Surprisingly delicious!
Silkworms! Also surprisingly delicious. This is how you eat them: bite off the tail and suck out the mushy protein inside, spit out the skin. Then find the heart and dig it out, don't eat it. Then stick the rest of the silk worm in your mouth, suck out the rest of the mushy protein inside, and spit out the skin again.
Just some of our food. We had a bazillion dishes. Everything was delicious! Lots of meat on skewers as you can see.
Ike had a super hot chicken wing!! Yowza!
Ike trying chicken head.The next morning we headed with Brian for a second attempt to find a travel agent who could get us our train tickets, to no avail. So, he took us to the Shenyang train station to get our tickets to Beijing, and then we decided we could wing it the rest of the trip. He dropped us off at Shenyang's version of the Forbidden City (the large one is in Beijing), and we spent a few cold hours walking around the complex. It was really beautiful, but still decently busy with tour groups. Like our trip to Istanbul last year, we are glad we went in the "off" season to avoid the crowds. After finishing up the complex, we still had about an hour until the time we set with Brian to meet. So, we wasted time and walked around an indoor market for awhile, but Ike didn't like the constantly being pestered -- this really bothered him throughout the trip -- so we headed outside to take a stroll to pass the remaining half hour. This was nice, but by the time we were done, we were ready for Brian to meet us so we could get out of the cold! Well, turns out Brian's car broke down, and since he had no way of getting ahold of us, we were left stranded on a street corner in China for nearly 2 hours! Besides the fact that we froze our asses off waiting, we were really nervous because we didn't have Brian's address, the payphones all required some sort of phone card that we didn't have or know where to buy -- so having Brian's phone number was useless, and we didn't have our guidebook with the map or the survival Chinese phrases. We were really starting to freak out after the last hour. Finally, on the verge of desperation, we spotted 2 white guys, which just happened to speak English, work in China, and have a cell phone! We borrowed it and called Brian, and he told us his car had broken down, but that he'd be there in about 5 minutes. Oh man oh man. He took us to another restaurant for lunch, which also turned out to be delicious -- we were starving from no breakfast, and it was nearly 2:30 pm already! One of my favorite parts of the Chinese cuisine is the boiled/fried cabbage!! I hate the fermented cabbage here in Korea, but the way the Chinese prepare it, I could eat it every meal! After lunch Brian drove us out to a museum, but it had just closed by the time we got there, and I was feeling pretty sleepy and not wanting to be out in the cold and abandoned anymore, so we just headed back to Brian's place. He dropped us off, then went to Camellia's to spend some time with her, while we showered, watched a movie, and hit the sack!
Inside the Forbidden City, in Shenyang.
Inside the Forbidden City, in Shenyang. SNOW!
Inside the Forbidden City, in Shenyang.
Inside the Forbidden City, in Shenyang. These statues of lions are all over China. They were our version of Chinese "Hammers" (my cat's name). One thing that is interesting, but that we don't really understand, is that usually one of the lion's feet is stepping on some small creature, which has a look of pain/utter horror on his face. Yikes!
Brian entering the lunch restaurant. These creepy paper Santa heads were EVERYWHERE, especially our first week in China.The next morning we had an early express train to Beijing (capital city, population ~15 million). The ride was about 4 hours, and we were successfully comatose for the first couple. The train was surprisingly nice. We arrived at the Beijing train station around noon, where we exit the platform like livestock -- you follow a ramp down from your platform into a central underground tunnel that then slants back upward, but people from all train platforms are being funneled into the central tunnel. The pollution was pretty bad here as well. We came out of the tunnel, and briefly looked for a ticket office to purchase our train ticket out of Beijing, but couldn't find one. Then we tried to get a taxi. Ike and I had problems with taxi's all throughout our China trip. We tried several, and none would take us to our hotel, saying something in Chinese that of course we coudln't understand. This time we ended up hopping on the subway and then having about a half hour walk to our hotel from a subway stop. The rest of the trip we would just have to try and finally about the 3rd taxi would agree to take us where we wanted to go. Luckily we didn't rely on taxis too much. Our hotel in Beijing was called N.E. Courtyard Hotel, and was down in the main tourist section of the city, but back in a little series of alleys. It was a local hotel, owned by a Chinese family. But, the rooms were nice and it was nice to spread out our stuff as we would be staying for a few days. Also, one of the younger girls workign at the hotel had excellent English, so she helped us order train tickets and set up a tour to the great wall!! What a life saver!! We got some lunch at a nearby cheap diner, and then went back to the hotel to settle in a bit more. After awhile of recharging our batteries, we decided we should do something our first night in Beijing, so we headed to Wangfujing Street, which is a shopping district, just to walk around. We bought a few souvenirs and enjoyed just walking around and exploring this part of town.
Shopping street in Beijing. Lots of ritzy shops!
Shopping street in Beijing. Aww, wouldn't this make a beautiful Christmas card? Hah!
Shopping street in Beijing. This Christmas tree was actually quite beautiful! (Usually Christmas decorations in Asia are really gaudy.)
Shopping street in Beijing. One of 4 Catholic churches in Beijing.By now we noticed that Chinese people were much bigger built than Koreans and Japanese. Must be the more robust, and less healthy-but-oh-so-delicious diet. Also, Chinese people, to put it bluntly, are pretty ugly. I mean, Koreans are beautiful people, so maybe that is why I was so shocked by the overall lack of good looks in China. And the Chinese language is also quite ugly, definitely not pleasant to the ear. Don't get me wrong, we were really enjoying our trip in China so far, despite the crowds, pollution, and ugliness around us! :-)
The next day in Beijing, we headed out to the Summer Palace, which is a small distance outside the city. We had been recommended to visit this place before the Forbidden City. And, while I'm not sure it really gave us more background info for the FC since we didn't have a guide, I'm really glad we were recommended to make the trip out to the Summer Palace, otherwise we might have skipped it, which would have been a real shame! We took the subway to the nearest stop, which took quite awhile, and then found a taxi (on our 2nd try!). We had pretty bad traffic getting out there, but the ride cost 28RMB ($4). The Summer Palace was HUGE and gorgeous! It is a series of beautiful buildings set along a lake, which was frozen while we were there because it was so cold! I'm sure the place would have been even more beautiful in the summer with the green plants and colorful flowers all around. Anyway, we climbed up to the very top of the complex, which was kind of set upon a small mountain, and had some gorgeous views. Check out the pictures! (And Ike's blog for more of a description) We were pretty pooped from spending several hours walking out and about in the complex, so by the time we taxied and took the metro back downtown, we stopped at a restaurant we had spotted the previous night and had wanted to try out. We ordered a couple dishes, one being sweet and sour pork, which we fell IN LOVE with, and actually we went back to this same restaurant about 2 or 3 more times to get the same dish! :-) And then ordered it any other time we found it on the menu. :-) The food was amazing and we were stuffed, so went back to our hotel to ring in the new year! I have become an old lady, though, and some how fell asleep at 9pm while we were watching a movie! Luckily Ike woke me up around 11:45 to ring in the new year. What a party animal I am! :-)
Summer Palace. This place was HUGE!
Summer Palace.
Summer Palace.
Summer Palace. This was a large outdoor, raised walkway with thousands of individual landscape paintings. On both sides of each beam as well as on each wall.
Summer Palace.
Summer Palace.
Summer Palace.
Summer Palace.
Summer Palace. Marble boat. Really its not a boat, its a pavilion. The bottom is made out of stone, but all of the structure above the base is just wood painted to look like marble! 
Sorry, this is a bit blurry, but funny nonetheless. Check out the load this guy is hauling on his bicycle cart!The next day, New Years Day, was a national holiday in China. I had known this, but forgot. We had decided to go visit Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City on this day -- and they were packed because everyone had the day off -- OOPS! Tienanmen Square is a huge plaza -- at least 4x8 city blocks big! We went to see Mao's Mausoleum, which was over-rated, and we had to wait in a huge line to get to see it, but it was free, so whatever. His body has been embalmed and is inside a glass case so you can see him, looking like he just died last week. It's a little creepy to be honest! Then we went inside the Forbidden City, which is much larger than the one we saw in Shenyang. This place is huge, with courtyard inside of courtyard, and gate behind gate, and rooms tucked away in every corner! It really was a massive complex, and we meandered through it, sometimes getting lost, but always finding things tucked into nooks and crannies. We spent a few hours here walking around, then we got scammed on the way to the metro heading back to our hotel. OOPS! These 2 college aged girls came up to us and walked with us for about 5 minutes towards the subway stop, practicing their English. Then when we got to the stop they asked if we would like to go drink some tea with them "for only 20 minutes." Ok, what the hell. They were nice, and Brian had told us that if someone Chinese invites you out for tea or a meal, they will always pay for you. Well, we got to the tea house and started a "tea tasting" which turned out to be 30RMB or $5 per cup, for a tiny little cup smaller than a shot glass. Well, we didn't realize the tea tasting was costing that much, and I was under the impression these girls would pay since they had invited us. Nope, both were wrong. It ended up we had to pay $120 (800RMB) for the tea for the 2 of us. It was really good tea, but there was no way in hell we would have paid that much for tea. Anyway, it was definitely a scam. I'm sure these girls were working for that tea houes just dragging in foreigners. Oops, you live and learn. Needless to say, that put us in quite a bad mood. We went back to the hotel and cleaned ourselves up, as we had reservations for a traditional Peking Duck dinner and a Beijing Opera show. A private car picked us up at our hotel and drove us all over town (it seemed) to get to the restaurant. I really liked the duck, but we also had like 5 other dishes. The whole meal was pretty delicious! The duck tasted similar to turkey but had a thin layer of crispy fat on the edge of each piece of meat, and it melted in your mouth! Yummy!! Then we went to the traditional Opera show, which was quite a let down. It only lasted about an hour, and there were several one-acts. Pretty much it's really exaggerated make up, and really exaggerated acting, and talkign and singing in really high pitched voices. It was ok, but I think we were taken to a low caliber one. :-( We headed back and went straight to bed, as tomorrow would be an early day to the Great Wall!!
Tienanmen Square -- behind me is the first gate into the Forbidden city.
Tienanmen Square -- that's Mao's mausoleum in the background.
Tienanmen Square -- a large gate to the former city walls.
Tienanmen Square -- very communist looking statues outside Mao's Mausoleum.
Forbidden City -- check out how huge this place is!!! See the people's heads down at the very bottom?
Forbidden City
Forbidden City -- they had these huge vats sitting around that used to be filled with water in case of a fire.
Forbidden City -- jade is a very popular art form in China. We saw some beautiful jade art throughout our trip!
Freaking expensive tea. Gah.
The final act of the Beijing Opera.The next day our bus picked us up at 7am for a tour to the Great Wall, which we visited at Mutainyu. The most common place for tourists to visit is Badaling, which is closer to Beijing, but is very touristy and has a Starbucks! We said no thank you, and decided to try out Mutainyu, which was supposed to be a little less touristy. We were the first out of the 8 people on the tour to be picked up, and we actually had to wait like 15 minuts on the next group of 3, and then a half hour for a group of 3 frenchies. What a bummer! Again, would have rather slept an extra hour than waiting for them on a mini bus. Oh well! We got to the wall and it was pretty amazing! You take a cable car to get to the top. Once up on the wall, there were probably about 20-30 other people up there at the same time as us, but pretty sperad out, so we basically had the wall to ourselves most of the time. We walked through 8 guard towers, and to make it to the last one we had to climb 454 steps! Yes, we counted, and yes it was quite the workout! It was well worth it, as the view was spectacular. This 8th tower was the furthest we were supposed to go on the wall, because it hadn't been reconstructed further out, so there was a "Danger: Don't Pass" sign after that tower. By the time we got there, however, it was time to turn around and meet back up with our tour group in the parking lot below. Of course, both groups were abotu a half hour late. So much for respecting the tour guide and our schedule? We had to just wait in the parking lot. But, the Great Wall turned out to be our favorite part of the whole trip in China! We then had lunch in a government run jade factory -- a bit of a gimmick to get us to buy stuff, which we did. :-P Then we headed to the Sacred Way, which is the entrance to the 13 Ming Tombs. It was lined with statues and kinda neat to see. The tour wrapped up with a trip to a silk factory. We learned about how the silk is collected from the silkworms and and made into a cotton-y type fabric, but we didn't see how they made it into the very fine silk we think of. Again, this was a gimmick to get you to buy something, but we didn't because everything was pretty ugly! :-P After returning to our hotel, we decided to head back to the shopping street where we heard there was an exciting and crazy Night Food Market. We stopped in a small back street along the way and got some delicious food in a locals-only restaurant, then made our way to the Night Market, which is more pricey and touristy, but definitely worth checking out! We finally got around to trying the candied fruits we had seen from street vendors around Beijing. THEY WERE AMAZING! Traditionally they do crab apples, but now they have all kinds of fruit, like strawberries and kiwi and pineapple. They were really delicious, and we were instantly addicted! :-) We got them quite a few other times throughout our travels in China. We also tried banana donuts and even scorpion (deep fat fried, so tasted like french fries)!! Ike also had some sheep heart. We also saw sea urchins, snake, worms, and they were selling more penis on a stick! The vendors were just yelling out "PENIS" at the top of their lungs, and it made Ike and I chuckle. :-)
Great Wall!! Wowza!
Great Wall!!
Great Wall!! Getting ready to climb the 454 steps up to the next guard tower.
Great Wall!! After making it up the 454 steps! WOO!
Great views from the Great Wall!
Sacred Way.
Sacred Way.
Sacred Way.
Sacred Way. Yeah, I like kissing turtles!
Sacred Way.
Night Food Market. Various crazy things, like octopus, sheep heart, kidney, etc.
Night Food Market. Scorpians! Cicadas! Crickets!
Night Food Market. Busy place!
Night Food Market. Me trying a scorpion -- tasted like a french fry: grease and salt.
Night Food Market. The crazy candied fruit guys! They were a hoot.The next day we slept in, well, at least tried. The hotel family must have had a large family gathering for the new years, because the hotel was full of people and lots of kids screaming about in the halls, starting too early for our tastes. We finally got our butts out of bed and headed back near Tienanmen Square, this time to head South of it. We walked along a shopping street and got some meat on skewers for lunch, then headed towards the Temple of Heaven, in the SE part of the main part of the city. It was quite a walk to get there, but very peaceful once inside. See Ike's blog for more of a description of what was there. One of the highlights was seeing a kitty hunting a few sparrows. We were walking towards the exit and saw quite a few people stopped on the sidewalk and staring into the grass. Then we noticed the cat crouched down ready to prance on 4 birds! It was amazing when it did! Pretty much it jumped like 3 feet in the air, right into the middle of the birds, spreading its legs out in a spread eagle! It was hysterical!! :-) On the way home we got some more of the delicious sweet and sour pork!! Yummies!
Yummy! Candied strawberries!
Temple of Heaven.
Temple of Heaven.
Temple of Heaven.
Temple of Heaven.Then it was our last day in Beijing. We slept in again and checked out of the hotel at noon. We'd be taking an overnight train that night to Xi'an, so wanted to do as much resting as we could. We we took the metro to the Lama Temple, which is a Tibetan Buddhist temple. It was pretty neat to see. They had a 55 foot tall Buddha carving made from a single piece of sandalwood, which was quite impressive, especially since it was painted gold. We also saw a Confucius temple, which honored all the Confucius scholars in China and did a great job of giving Confucius credit for pretty much every invention -- from the modern educational system, to the agricultural and industrial revolutions, to the European Enlightenment. They did a fantastic job of making him look like god! After heading back to the hotel to pick up our luggage, we made one last stop at our favorite Sweet & Sour Pork restaurant, before taking the metro to the train station. We made our way amongst the masses into the super crazy and packed Beijing West train station. We had purchased "soft sleeper" tickets, which meant we were in a small cabin with 4 bunked beds. The other 2 people in our cabin was an elderly couple, and we had purchased tickets for the upper 2 beds. It was quite funny to watch Ike "king kong" up and down the wall to get into his bed several times to go to the bathroom. I refrained from getting down once I was up, until about 6:30 the next morning to go to the bathroom, which was disgusting of course. I fell asleep really easily around 10pm, but then woke up in the middle of the night to the horrendous squeaking of the cars. Not sure if it was the tork of the moving train or what, but every few minutes there would be a horribly loud metal/plastic squeaking sound, and that unfortunately kept me awake for a few hours in the middle of the night.
The next morning we arrived in Xi'an (pronounced "she-ahn", a city in Central China, with more darker-skinned Chinese, population ~7 million) around 7:30 am. I actually fell getting down out of the train car with my suitcase. I guess I underestimated balancing its weight! :-P Xi'an was HORRIBLY polluted and very dark still, since all of China is on Beijing time, even though it really should be 4 different time zones. We did the whole ramp down and ramp up, feeling like livestock again, and the whole "should we try to get our train tickets here by ourselves? nah, let's ask the hotel", and the whole stumbling around for a taxi. It was extremely frustrating in Xi'an getting a taxi. We were at the taxi stop, but no taxis would even stop for us!! Finally a taxi driver came up and said he'd charge us 40RMB ($6) which was overpriced, but whatever. We had no other choice! Our hotel was really nice and had lots of Westerners there. After settling into our room and taking a quick shower, we headed off to buy our train tickets at a nearby window, since our hotel wouldnt' actually book them for us, and had to stand in line over an hour! The train travel and all domestic travel in China is really picking up right now for the Spring Festival (aka, Chinese New Year). The holiday isn't actually until Jan 26th, but lots of people go back to their hometowns to celebrate. Brian had told us we were lucky we were getting out of china when we were, to beat the crazy traffic that always takes place during the New Year. Well, we read in the newspaper that this year the travel is even worse than usual. Many migrant workers are out of work because of the economic downturn, and so many are heading back home even earlier! We ran into lots of other tourists who were planning on being in China for the celebration, and most were quite nervous about their travel plans. You can only purchase train tickets once you are in the city you are departing from (aka, you can't purchase a train ticket leaving from Xi'an until you are actually in Xi'an) and you can't buy tickets more than about a week early. I had expressed this concern to Ike when we were picking our dates, and he was like "nah, we'll be getting out of there 2 weeks before the New Years, I'm sure there won't be tons of people arriving that early." Well, we were wrong! Good thing we picked the dates we did! :-) After getting our tickets heading out the next evening, we caught a bus to the train station, and from there another bus out to the Terracotta Army! It was about a 45 minute bus ride out of the city, but I was impressed with how many buses they had running out there! Definitely cheaper than taking a taxi!! The complex was pretty neat to see, but nothing breath-taking. Again, see Ike's blog for more of a description. But basically, the emperor who united all of China had this massive life-sized army built out of terracotta to be buried with him and follow him into the after-world. The complex is huge and this is just such a massive project! It took about 30 years to complete I guess! After wandering around for a couple hours, we caught another (less touristy, more local) bus which took some bumpy backroads and we passed a ton of rubble to get back to the train station, and then back to the hotel. I took a nap for awhile, we watched a movie, and then headed out late to get some food.
Terracotta Army. Check out my pollution mask! 
Terracotta Army. 
Terracotta Army. 
Terracotta Army. Squatting archer.
Terracotta Army.The next day we slept in again and checked out of our hotel around noon. We were worried if 2 days in Xi'an would be enough time, but really there wasn't too much to do. We stopped briefly at a post office near our hotel to send off a couple postcards. Then we asked our hotel which bus to take to get to the Xi'an history museum, and they told us. Well, they didn't tell us that the bus wouldn't actually stop at the museum. Lucky for us, we are smart, deductive people, and figured this out on the bus. We ended up getting off the bus at the Great Goose Pagoda complex, where we paid the entrance fee and spent a few hours looking around the complex, which was another Buddhist temple. Then we got some lunch and headed to the history museum. It turned out it was free, and it was a great museum overall!! There was lots of neat bronze work, jade work, and other cool stuff that I already forget! :-) We headed back to our hotel, wasted an hour or so waiting in the lobby reading, and then got dinner in the hotel. Then we got our luggage and hopped on a bus back to the train station. Again, it was super crowded and people are very rude and pushy!! We had another soft sleeper car. Our train left about 15 minutes late because Xi'an wasn't the first stop on the train, it was actually coming all the way from Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetian province of China. So it had already been traveling for 2 days!! This meant that our cabin was a little dirty, uck. We had opted for the bottom 2 bunks this time, and we shared our cabin with an older man and another upper 20's guy. Don't know if they were related or not. I again fell asleep easily, but then woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep, so took an Advil PM to help me out! :-) Our train got in about a half hour or so late, getting us into Shanghai around noon the next day.
The apartments across the alley from our hotel in Xi'an. 
Candles and incense offerings outside the Buddhist Temple.
Peony Pavilion near the Great Goose Pagoda. 
Ike in front of the Great Goose Pagoda.
Ike inside the train on the way to Shanghai.Shanghai (another industrial/financial city, on the Eastern coast of China, about halfway down, with a population of ~20 million) was warmer and less polluted than Xi'an, but still quite polluted. We caught the subway to the stop near our hostel, and then had about a 10 minute walk to get to the hostel. The hostel was really nice and lots of people staying there. I'm sure it's booked up way in advance during the peak travel times. It had a neat atmosphere, and our room was spatious and breakfast included all for a really reasonable price. After checking into our hotel room, we relaxed for a bit (I napped while Ike watched a movie), then we headed out to the Bund, which is the old colonial area of Shanghai -- lots of British and American architecture on one side of the river, and then all the new/crazy/"futuristic" sky scrapers on the other side. Both had beautiful lights. We enjoyed the walk along the river, despite being bombarded with offers to buy crappy little toys, kites, watches, etc. We wandered around for a bit, hit up some of the street food near our metro stop on the way back to the hotel, and then played some Poker before hitting the sack.
The Bund.
The Bund. Colonial buildings.
The Bund. Colonial buildings. 
The Bund. "Futuristic" skyscrapers. 
Some yummy street food we picked up on the way back to the hostel!The next day we got up for the breakfast in the hostel, which was delicious! There was cereal, some yummy steamed Chinese bread with meat inside, and toast with incredibly delicious strawberry jam! We relaxed in our hotel for a couple hours in the morning, and then headed back to the Bund to catch a boat ride up the river at 2pm. The 2 Swedish dudes ("young shits", as I refered to them, joined us. We met a girl from NY doing her PhD in cattle disease modeling and a couple from Argentina on the boat. The boat ride was mediochre, nothing compared to our Bospherous trip in Istanbul! But we got to see the port, which is one of the biggest/busiest in the world. Coincidentally I felt like I was breathing in straight petroleum the whole time. Anyway, we got to see lots of huge boats, huge cranes, and tons of railroad cars being loaded and unloaded onto ships. The boatride went up to the mouth of the Yangtze River, and then turned around and came back to the Bund. We then picked up some food off of the main shopping street before catching the metro to a theater where we had booked tickets for an acrobatics show that night, hoping it would be better than the opera we saw in Beijing! We were told to take a taxi, but actually found it wasn't too far once we looked at the map in the station, so we just ended up walking. I was really impressed with our navigation skills in China, which was pretty lacking in English compared to Korea, even despite the fact that the olympics were just held there a few months ago! We managed the subways, bus systems, and walking pretty well! We stopped at a Starbucks to treat ourselves to a mango smoothie and a piece of blueberry cheesecake! Yummy! The "acrobats" show turned out to only have like 2 acts of acrobats, the rest was juggling, magic, and other random acts, but it was still a great show! And our tickets were only $25. After the show we headed back to the hotel to get some rest.
Boat ride along the river in Shanghai. 
Boat ride along the river in Shanghai.
Boat ride along the river in Shanghai. Huge ships and cranes!
Boat ride along the river in Shanghai. This ship was monstrous!
Boat ride along the river in Shanghai. Lots of train cars. Wonder how many of those have passed through Galesburg?
"Acrobats" /variety show in Shanghai. These had a type of yoyo thing that they did tricks, flips, and turns with.
"Acrobats" /variety show in Shanghai. This little kid was incredible!
"Acrobats" /variety show in Shanghai. Yeah, we can stack chairs and do handstands on them!
"Acrobats" /variety show in Shanghai. This dude kept throwing this huge jar in the air and catching it on his head. I think he had a trough in his skull.
Sign in the Shanghai metro. :-)Our last day in Shanghai we decided to hit up the old Bazaar. We headed out after breakfast and checking out of our hostel. We actually ended up buying a cheap teaset and a decent plate to go with the one we got in Istanbul last year, as well as a couple other small things. The bazaar was fun to walk through (although Ike hated the constant pestering and bartering) and we caught some lunch before walking to the Shanghai history museum. This museum was also free, and had lots of cool stuff as well. Besides seeing more bronze and jade, we also got to see beautiful landscape paintings, calligraphy, furniture, and even a really nice collection of old Chinese coins! We were pretty pooped after the musem, so went back and got some dinner at a restaurant near our hostel, got our suitcases, then hopped on the metro to catch the high speed train out to the airport, where we had a hotel for the night. We asked how long the train was at our hostel, and they told us 80 minutes, which surprised me quite a bit because it was supposively a high speed train. Anyway, we got on the train and pretty soon it was up to like 300 km/hour, or like 180 mph! We though, man how far out is this airport that we're going 80 minutes at 180 mph!?! Well, we set up camp for the 80 minute ride, getting out the computer to work on the blog, taking off the coats, etc. Well, after about 5 minutes, the train starts slowing down again, and we notice signs for the terminal. Turns out it was only an 8 minute train ride! Our bad! We felt kinda silly getting all settled in for such a short ride, but we were glad that it was so short!! We checked into our hotel, which was right inside the airport! It was a nice room and very convenient location all for about $50. We got our stuff all around for the flight early the next morning.
Inside the bazaar in Shanghai. There were tons of shops selling Chinese lanterns and tassles.
Inside the bazaar in Shanghai. This was at a famous tea house. The bridges leading to it have tons of 90 degree angles. In China they believe that bad spirits can't navigate turns and corners, so this is to keep them out!
Inside the bazaar in Shanghai.
History museum in Shanghai. An example of some early bronze work, about 4000 years old!
Our hotel at the Shanghai airport. Ike is in pure bliss!! :-)Our flight left at 8am back to Seoul, and was super empty! There were probably only 30 people on the flight, and despite it being a pretty small plane, it was less than a quarter full. The flight was uneventful and lasted about 1 hr 45 minutes. Then I hung out with Ike in the airport until his flight left for Japan at 2:30. We found Burger King, which was super exciting for him! :-) It was very hard to say goodbye again, but we survived. Then I caught a 4 hour bus down to Gwangju, and then an hour bus ride over to Suncheon, taxi ride, and then I was back to my Korean home by 8pm! It didn't feel like I had been gone for 2 weeks -- the trip went so fast! Overall we had a great time, and Ike and I both feel lucky that we got to spend 2 weeks together, and in such an amazing and different country like China!
I know this has been a long post, but considering it was 2 weeks in China, it's a pretty consolidated version!! :-) We took a ton of pics, but these are only the best of each day. Hope you enjoyed reading!
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