Hey everyone!
This week has been an exciting one! It started off with the summer palace which was beautiful! It starts with a ton of typical, but beautiful, Chinese looking buildings and you have to climb a lot of stairs to get to them. The picture I posted on Instagram with Jamie and I doing our Asian poses is at the opening of the summer palace. Anyway, behind all of that are massive grounds that go on forever. Then behind that is a giant lake that you can walk around and go on a boat ride across. I am going to try to send pictures with this email. Who knows if it will actually work...
The day after the summer palace we went to tienanman square which is where students started a protest and one guy had a tank drive right up to him and he didn't flinch. One of their most famous chairmen (kind of like our president) is also enbalmed there and on display but we didn't see him. We also went to the forbidden city that day which is where the ancient emperors would live. So it was forbidden to the commoners. That place was again massive. We spent 3 hours there and didn't even see it all. But we saw some of the emperor's thrones and sleeping quarters and some other really random things from his wife and concubines. One of the weirdest things we saw there was a big clay type sculpture with Buddha in it. It was made by the son of the empress and it was used to hold a piece of his mom's hair after she died. That's it. He spent tons of money on something that would hold nasty old hair.
After that adventure was done we went to a park next to the forbidden city that looked over the entire thing. It was a really cool sight!
The day after all of that we went to the great wall. That place is so green! Lucky for us that day wasn't half as humid as the other days. Jamie and I decided to take the ski lift up to where the great wall is which gave us 15 extra minutes on the wall because we didn't have to hike up. Score! We tried taking some pictures to imitate the beginning scene of Mulan when the huns show up on the great wall and the soldier tells the leader that all of China knew he was there. Do you know which scene in talking about? Anyway it didn't work out very well. Thebes we took tobogans down the mountain when we were done (they were just like the Alpine slide).
Oh! We also went to a crazy actobatics show! It was so fun! They put 7 people on motorcycles and then put them in a spherical cage one by one and they drove around in there. It was so intense!
Ok one last big thing we did. We went to this place called the exotic food district. Can you all guess where I am going with this? This place was so gross and fun at the same time. When you walk in it its a little alley so tons of people are trying to get into this Itty bitty space. The first thing you see when you get there is a shop with buckets of scorpions on sticks. They have some that are alive but most are fried and dead. Jamie started off strong and ate a fried scorpion. He says it wasn't too terrible but not his favorite. Then we both tried balute. Do you know what that is? Its a chick that is mostly grown but still in the egg. So nasty!! It has feathers and everything. I did not like it. Then we tried choudoufu (pronounced cho doe foo). Or in other words stinky tofu. Guys that stuff is rancid! You know that smell when you step in fresh dog poop? That's what choudoufu smells AND tastes like. It was so disgusting! We continued to walk down this crowded and tiny alley where we saw all kinds of things like snake, french fries, tarantula, and all kinds of scary stuff. Then I saw a girl walking around with cotton candy. If you know me at all you know that is one of my favorites. So we found the stand that they were selling them at and there was a guy there smoking right over the machine! Needless to say, I didn't get any cotton candy. It finally started getting late so we decided to head back but Jamie wanted to try one more thing before we left. Can you guys guess what it was?
This week has been an exciting one! It started off with the summer palace which was beautiful! It starts with a ton of typical, but beautiful, Chinese looking buildings and you have to climb a lot of stairs to get to them. The picture I posted on Instagram with Jamie and I doing our Asian poses is at the opening of the summer palace. Anyway, behind all of that are massive grounds that go on forever. Then behind that is a giant lake that you can walk around and go on a boat ride across. I am going to try to send pictures with this email. Who knows if it will actually work...
The day after the summer palace we went to tienanman square which is where students started a protest and one guy had a tank drive right up to him and he didn't flinch. One of their most famous chairmen (kind of like our president) is also enbalmed there and on display but we didn't see him. We also went to the forbidden city that day which is where the ancient emperors would live. So it was forbidden to the commoners. That place was again massive. We spent 3 hours there and didn't even see it all. But we saw some of the emperor's thrones and sleeping quarters and some other really random things from his wife and concubines. One of the weirdest things we saw there was a big clay type sculpture with Buddha in it. It was made by the son of the empress and it was used to hold a piece of his mom's hair after she died. That's it. He spent tons of money on something that would hold nasty old hair.
After that adventure was done we went to a park next to the forbidden city that looked over the entire thing. It was a really cool sight!
The day after all of that we went to the great wall. That place is so green! Lucky for us that day wasn't half as humid as the other days. Jamie and I decided to take the ski lift up to where the great wall is which gave us 15 extra minutes on the wall because we didn't have to hike up. Score! We tried taking some pictures to imitate the beginning scene of Mulan when the huns show up on the great wall and the soldier tells the leader that all of China knew he was there. Do you know which scene in talking about? Anyway it didn't work out very well. Thebes we took tobogans down the mountain when we were done (they were just like the Alpine slide).
Oh! We also went to a crazy actobatics show! It was so fun! They put 7 people on motorcycles and then put them in a spherical cage one by one and they drove around in there. It was so intense!
Ok one last big thing we did. We went to this place called the exotic food district. Can you all guess where I am going with this? This place was so gross and fun at the same time. When you walk in it its a little alley so tons of people are trying to get into this Itty bitty space. The first thing you see when you get there is a shop with buckets of scorpions on sticks. They have some that are alive but most are fried and dead. Jamie started off strong and ate a fried scorpion. He says it wasn't too terrible but not his favorite. Then we both tried balute. Do you know what that is? Its a chick that is mostly grown but still in the egg. So nasty!! It has feathers and everything. I did not like it. Then we tried choudoufu (pronounced cho doe foo). Or in other words stinky tofu. Guys that stuff is rancid! You know that smell when you step in fresh dog poop? That's what choudoufu smells AND tastes like. It was so disgusting! We continued to walk down this crowded and tiny alley where we saw all kinds of things like snake, french fries, tarantula, and all kinds of scary stuff. Then I saw a girl walking around with cotton candy. If you know me at all you know that is one of my favorites. So we found the stand that they were selling them at and there was a guy there smoking right over the machine! Needless to say, I didn't get any cotton candy. It finally started getting late so we decided to head back but Jamie wanted to try one more thing before we left. Can you guys guess what it was?
That's right. The LIVE scorpion. So he went to that first stand bought a stick (comes with three scorpion on it) and ate not just one but TWO live scorpion! He's crazy and so cool for that! I have video proof as well for anyone who wants to see that when we get home.
So there you go. Sorry it is so long! We are heading to our cities, where we are teaching, tomorrow morning which is really exciting. I can't wait to start!
Hope you are all having fun now that everyone is back in school.
It's been an adventure so far and the real food that we eat is actually pretty good! So this are going well so far.
Miss you all!
So there you go. Sorry it is so long! We are heading to our cities, where we are teaching, tomorrow morning which is really exciting. I can't wait to start!
Hope you are all having fun now that everyone is back in school.
It's been an adventure so far and the real food that we eat is actually pretty good! So this are going well so far.
Miss you all!
Skeeter
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