Early on the morning of February 16^th the MV Explorer pulled into Yangtze River and went upstream to the port in downtown Shanghai. The ship docked very early in the morning but yet again, the process of immigration kept us impatiently waiting. The day we arrived it was sunny yet very cold. The air had a bite to it and there was frost all over the top deck. The Yangtze River flows right through the center of Shanghai so the ship was docked right in the middle of downtown; we were surrounded by tall skyscrapers and beautifully architected buildings. When we could get off the ship, around 1200, my friends Mike, Erin, Elena, and I did the first thing you have to do in every country: find an ATM and get money. Fortunately, this wasn’t that hard, we just had to follow the sea of SAS kids down the street to the bank. It took us a while to withdraw money because of the long line, but once that was done, we started making our way to the Bund, which is the high class riverfront area of Shanghai. The overall plan was to catch a bus to the other side of Shanghai and go to the zoo where we could see the pandas. We had a tour book of Shanghai that told us what bus we needed and which streets to catch it on. We started heading for Ningjing Street, which we found on our map, where the number 13 bus was supposed to stop. The walk was all through the Bund right on the edge of the river through the mobs of Chinese people. Shanghai normally has a population of about 22 million people, but while we were there it was much more than that. We just happened to be in China for most of the Chinese New Year which was downright amazing. Because of the New Year, many shops were closed and the streets were packed. I have never seen so many people in one place in my life. We carefully navigated the streets of the Bund trying not to lose any of our group members. The buildings along the river at the Bund were beautiful white stone colonial looking buildings. They were mostly hotels with a few ritzy shops thrown in here and there. We walked and walked quite a ways until we got to what we thought was Ningjing Street. We looked around and we could not find any bus stops. We looked at the street sign and realized we had made a mistake; we were looking for Ningjing Street, but we had found was Ninjing Street. This was one of the problems of navigating China, there were many Nings, Jings, Nins, and Nans in the street names. By the time we realized all of this, it was too late to go to the zoo so we just decided to walk around and see the rest of downtown Shanghai. We started heading inland and wanted to find a place to stop and eat lunch. We left the ritzy area of the Bund and entered the normal commercial area of the city. We walked until we encountered a group of pagoda style buildings and lots of red Chinese lamps hanging everywhere. It was a Ney Year market where they were selling toys, decorations, and other miscellaneous items. We entered this two block by two block market and were shocked. This was the most densely packed area I have ever been in. There were people shoulder to shoulder everywhere there was space. The only possible way to move was to enter a current of people and follow it wherever it was going. Fortunately I found a man walking a bicycle and got in behind him, which gave me some extra space. The streets were not closed to cars, but no car even dared try to get through the mob of people. We got in one block to the main intersection of the market and decided we were too overwhelmed and started heading out of the market a different way we came. When we finally got out of the madness and caught our breath we decided we were very hungry and wanted to find a restaurant. I was surprised by the fact that I had not even seen a restaurant yet that wasn’t a McDonalds or a different fast food place. We walked another block from the market and saw a few people eating bowls of noodle soup outside of a small door with some Chinese characters above it which we presumed was a restaurant. We walked up and a very exited Chinese man started rapidly talking to us. When he realized we were giving him blank stares, and that we didn’t speak Chinese, he just pointed to the people eating and said, “Soup?” We replied with yes and he told us to follow him inside. We went down a narrow hallway and into a room that was about ten feet by twenty feet that looked more like a storage closet than a restaurant. There were about five tables inside, three of them already having families eating at them. He sat us down and about two minutes later came out with four big bowls of soup. We devoured the soup, now being very proficient at eating soup with chopsticks, and rested for a few minutes before heading back out to the streets. We paid for our soup which turned out to be six yuan for each bowl. The exchange rate while we were there was 6.8 yuan per 1 U.S. dollar which meant that the big meal we just ate wasn’t even one dollar. We walked around some more just winding down any street that looked interesting. We found a small street vendor that was grilling on the corner so we decided to go see what it was. He was grilling kebabs of octopus tentacles and since we have to try everything interesting, we all ordered one. We watched him throw the kebabs on the grill and powder on a few different spices. It actually tasted very good, but had a weird texture. The flavor was mostly from the spices he put on it and the tentacles had a somewhat rubbery chewy texture. We decided to head back to the ship because we were going to meet our friend Corena who was coming back from an FDP (Field Directed Practica) which was riding the Maglev train. The Maglev train is the fastest train in the world which actually hovers along the tracks on very powerful repelling magnets. The way it accelerates is by activating attractive magnets on the track in front of the train, pulling it forward. This modern marvel travels at around 450-500kmh, which is about 270-300mph. Unfortunately it is still really only a prototype and it only goes from Shanghai to the airport. We got back on the ship, freshened up, and headed back to the Bund, which is spectacular by night. The classic colonial style buildings were lit up on the front, and across the river the tall skyscrapers had their lights on with exterior colored lights. We walked up and down the street for a bit taking pictures and enjoying the lights until we got hungry enough for dinner. We called two cabs and went to the other side of town to try and find a restaurant that we saw in the Lonely Planet book. We took a taxi to a corner near where the restaurant was, but on the walk to our chosen restaurant, we saw a different restaurant that looked too good to pass up. We went inside and it was a pretty fancy sit down restaurant that served traditional Chinese food family style. We all chose a dish and shared them throughout the table. It was delicious and not terribly expensive due to the exchange rate. After dinner we heard about a go-kart arena and bar so we hailed two taxis for the five of us and headed out. Mike and I got in one taxi and Corena, Erin, and Elena got into the other. The girls got in the first taxi, I showed the driver the directions, then hopped into our taxi. We lost sight of the girls within two blocks, but we figured that since we showed the driver the same directions, we would end up at the same place. The taxi took us through some really strange back streets and dropped us off in the middle of a somewhat run down residential area. We didn’t see the place we were looking for but there was a big billboard there advertising the bar we were looking for so we figured we had to be close. We waited about fifteen minutes for the girls’ taxi but they never showed up. Mike and I decided to follow the arrow on the billboard and it led us through a fairly sketchy area. There weren’t many streetlights and there were run down apartments all around, also the street was torn up due to construction but Mike and I are fairly big men so we weren’t terribly worried. After wondering around for about ten minutes, we found the go-kart bar on a pretty nice street. It was surprising how quickly you can go from poverty to classy areas. Mike and I went inside saw some other SAS people and asked them if they had seen our other group members. They said the girls hadn’t shown up yet so Mike and I went out on a search party. We walked around for about 45 minutes, but had no luck. We went back to the bar and decided to hop in the go-karts. It was amazing, the track was 4,500 square feet and the karts went really fast. Afterwards, we hung out in the bar and then headed home pretty early because we had to get up early the next morning. We got back to the ship, checked to see if the girls had made it home safely (and they had), and went to bed.

I woke up around 0700 the next morning to get ready for my Xi’an (pronounced Shee-an) and Beijing trip. We met in the union and waited for everyone to get there. At 0930 all 96 of the kids who were going on the trip were present so we split up into three groups by last name and headed to the busses. We took three busses to the airport, I was in bus A, regrouped and checked in. The check-in and security was relatively painless and then we had about an hour to wait in the airport before our flight to Xi’an. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 1200 and we departed only about fifteen minutes late. The flight to Xi’an was two hours and twenty minutes which wasn’t that bad because I got a window seat and met two nice people named Chelsea and Greg. I was slightly worried flying into Xi’an because looking out the window all I could see was polluted air and lots of farmland. But, when we got off the plane, onto the busses, and started heading into the city I could see that my preconceptions were wrong. Xi’an was the capital of China during the Zhou, Qin, Han, the Sui, and Tang Dynasties and it is filled with culture. There are giant walls throughout the city that used to surround it, but nowadays the city has expanded far past them. Our tour guide was named Albert and he was pretty funny. Albert is just his English name, I can’t even begin to pronounce his real name. The first place we went to was the Tang Dynasty Art Museum to see some art and try our hand at calligraphy. The art museum was pretty nice and filled with art from many different time periods. There were paintings, tapestries, masks, sculptures, and even shadow puppets which are movable puppets that are made from clear plastic-y paper and you use them in front of bright lights. After taking a guided tour throughout the museum, we sat down in the largest room where they had rice paper, brushes, and paint set up for us. We learned how to write “forever” and “I love you.” My calligraphy is not the best, but I didn’t think it was too bad. After we practiced these symbols for a bit, we could walk around on our own and purchase small paintings if we wanted. After the art museum, we headed to our hotel to check in. We were staying at the Xi’an Jianguo Hotel, which was a very nice four star hotel. We got assigned roommates based on our last name and I got roomed with a guy named Zach, who I had met once or twice before, but never really talked to. He turned out to be really awesome and we became really good friends. We rested in the hotel for a little bit, got to watch some Olympics, and then it was time for dinner. We went to De Fa Cheng which is a big classy restaurant and we had a huge dumpling dinner. They brought out about twenty different rounds of different dumplings, most of which were delicious. There were some spicy ones, that were way too spicy for me, and some seafood ones which I wasn’t a fan of, but overall, I definitely got my fill of dumplings. After dinner, we could have taken the bus back to the hotel but most people decided to walk around the hotel area and see what there is to see. Xi’an at night turned into a vibrant and colorful city. There are lights everywhere: on buildings, on the trees, on the wall, and even in the sky. The sky was filled with kites, strings of lights, fireworks (for the new year) and the mini hot air balloons that the Chinese light up and let go and they float off into the sky. We walked around the main downtown area which was a giant roundabout with a huge pagoda style clock tower in the middle. We walked around a market for a bit before we decided we were tired and wanted to back. We hopped in a cab, went back to the hotel, and fell asleep to the Olympics.

We woke up at 0645 the next day and had a Chinese/American breakfast in the hotel lobby. It had noodles, eggs, sausages, and lots of other good food. After breakfast we hopped on the bus and went to the Xi’an City Wall. It is the most complete city wall that has survived in China and it was very tall and very wide and also covered in decorations for the New Year. We climbed to the top of one of the guard towers where we could see all the way to the bell tower in the center of the city. We walked around the wall for a bit before hopping on the bus and heading to the Great Mosque. The Great Mosque is an Islamic Mosque in the center of Xi’an that is integrated in the middle of an intricate maze off alleys and markets. It would have been very difficult to find if we were not with a tour guide, but it was awesome. There just so happened to be a big festival going on so we saw a whole bunch of people praying and feasting. The Mosque is 12,000 square meters and filled with small houses, wells, and stone walls. We walked around in the gardens for a bit and headed back to the bus yet again. We drove about 45 minutes to the outskirts of Xi’an where we out to lunch at a local restaurant and had a traditional Chinese restaurant with a big lazy susan in the center and lots of plates of chicken, pork, vegetables, all in different sauces. After lunch there was a market right outside the restaurant where we shopped for a bit and then headed to the Terra Cotta Warrior Museum. The museum was only about ten minutes away from the restaurant and the actual building housing the soldiers was surrounded by a big park. The bus dropped us off and we walked through the ticket gate to the main plaza. The Terra Cotta Museum is divided into three sections. Building 1 has the re-assembled soldiers and the current excavation of the remaining soldiers, Building 2 has a huge excavation site of the rest of the tomb, and Building 3 houses the two famous bronze chariots that were uncovered. We first went into Building 1 where the soldiers were. We walked into the lobby of the building and the man who actually discovered the Terra Cotta soldiers, Yang Xinman, was sitting signing autographs and books for people. He is very old now, but back when he discovered the soldiers, he was just a young peasant. He actually found the soldiers because he was digging a well for their village when he stumbled across the artifacts. Since China is a communist country, he was not entitled to any claim over the artifacts, but the government gave him some monetary compensation and gave him a comfortable job signing autographs all day. This would be way better than a peasant lifestyle. We entered the room where the soldiers were being excavated and it was huge! It was a giant hangar covering the excavation site that was about 300 yards long and about 75 yards wide. There were about eight rows of soldiers going all the way to the back of the hangar with one row perpendicular to them out in front. They are arranged in a Chinese war formation, designed to protect the emperor after death. The most amazing thing is that every soldier is different. Each one has a unique set of armor and facial expression, and because of this, out of the 8,000 soldiers made, only about 1,000 have been reassembled. This tomb was raided before it was actually discovered, and because of this many of the soldiers were damaged or destroyed. The worst thing was that when the tomb was first opened, a lot of the soldiers just crumbled and their paint flaked off because of the new fresh air entering the tomb. They have yet to open the tomb of the Tang Emperor for exactly this reason. No one has dared enter the tomb until they can develop a technology that will preserve the artifacts in the fresh air. They are also dearly concerned about booby traps, like a real life Indiana Jones. We walked all around the hangar taking photos of all the reassembled soldiers and horses. All of them were incredibly detailed and life size, it was truly amazing. After wandering around in there for a bit we headed for Building 2, which wasn’t nearly as impressive. It was an excavation of a different part of the tomb, but there was nothing really in it. We were above it looking down and all it really was was a whole bunch of corridors and walls. We left that building and headed to Building 3, where the bronze chariots are kept. We entered and went down a large staircase to the room where they were. They were remarkably beautiful, but I was surprised to see that they were not life sized. They were each about six feet long and about four feet high, both chariots had four horses in front pulling them. They had amazing attention to detail and they were pretty awesome to see. By this time, it was about time to meet up with the rest of the group at the tea house. We got a quick tea ceremony, where they let us choose six different types of tea and we got to see how they were made and sample them, before we headed out. We all piled back onto the bus and headed for an orphanage on the outskirts of Xi’an. The orphanage was about 45 minutes away from the soldiers and it was in the very outskirts of the suburbs of Xi’an. There are normally about 90 kids in the orphanage, but since it was Chinese New Year a lot of the kids got to visit distant relatives for the holiday and only about 30 of them were still there. We entered the orphanage which was a small fenced off complex of buildings. There were a few classrooms, bedrooms, and one auditorium. When we first got there we took a brief tour of the classrooms and bedrooms. They were very small, but painted in bright happy colors. We exited the buildings and some of the kids started emerging from the other buildings. We got to play with them for a bit and we may have even started a snowball fight. It was my job to make snowballs for some of the smaller kids and they would go throw them at the other people. After running around for a bit we all headed into the auditorium where the kids put on a little show for us. The first show was four kids standing in a box formation and they did a little dance to a Chinese kiddie song. Afterwards, all 30 of the kids got up on the stage and did a hand gesture song which was pretty cute. When they were done, about half of our SAS group, including me, got up on the stage and sang the kids some American kiddie songs, such as Itsy Bitsy Spider, If You’re Happy and You Know It, and Row Row, Row Your Boat. After we were all done performing we played with the kids for a little longer before getting back on the bus and heading back to downtown Xi’an for the Tang Dynasty Dinner Show. We arrived at the Tang Dynasty Theater which is a brightly lit and colorful old style dinner theater. We all got to sit in the first two rows of tables which was an amazing view. As we sat down, the world renowned Tang Dynasty Orchestra started playing to accompany our dinner. I didn’t recognize any of the instruments but it was amazing. It was traditional Chinese music that was mostly plucked string instruments with a flute and all the orchestra members never even looked at their instruments. They stared smiling straight ahead the whole time. Dinner was a delicious five course meal with prawns, steak, dumplings, soup, chicken, and an orange soupy desert. It was all amazing. When we finished with desert, the show started. It was a beautiful performance with dancing and singing. I was right next to the orchestra which was really cool because they sounded amazing. They did a few costume dances where they incorporated long flowing twirling gowns into the dance and they did warrior dances where they leaped around with swords and got into choreographed fights. It was truly spectacular. The show lasted about two and a half hours which just flew by. When the show finished we piled back onto the bus, went back to the hotel, I went on a brief walk with my friend Buddy until we realized we were too tired, went to the hotel, and watched the Olympics for a bit before crashing.

We awoke the next morning at 0700 and went to breakfast. We ate at the hotel like the morning before and piled into the buses to head to the airport for our flight to Beijing. Our flight left at 1050 and arrived at 1225 fairly on time. We got out of the airport and met our Beijing tour guide, a lady named Susan. Susan was a small 30 year old woman with the spirit of a seven year old. She was excited about everything and loved to talk. She was really informational and told us a lot of cool things on our ride to lunch. It was another traditional family style lunch where we sat at big tables and ate off a lazy susan. Most of these meals were pretty much the same with pork, chicken, rice, and tofu, all in different sauces. After lunch we headed to our hotel which was the Courtyard Marriott Hotel which was amazing. Apparently, all the SAS trips that are overnight and not staying in a local’s house have to be in a hotel over four stars. I would have liked to stay in a smaller, more hostile type hotel, but I certainly wasn’t complaining about our hotels. After we checked in and put our stuff away we got the whole afternoon off to do whatever we wanted. Zach and I freshened up we met up with a few people and decided to walk around the block. We heard there was a mall across the street so we went to check it out. We found a 24 hour bakery that was a block away from our hotel and got some amazing Chinese treats. We went into the mall which was disappointing. We were expecting a traditional Chinese mall with vendors and everything, but it turned out to be your stereotypical American looking mall. The only cool thing about it was that there was an ice skating rink that you could look down upon from the first floor. We decided that there was nothing really in this area so we just headed back to the hotel and rested for a bit before dinner. We walked around for a bit looking for a good place, and we weren’t that hungry from our pastry earlier, and there weren’t really any traditional Chinese places so we decided to grab a quick bite at KFC. Apparently the Chinese love KFC. It is everywhere and they are always packed. People like to have long sit-down dinners there. We just grabbed something quick and headed back out. We went back to our room, got on some night clothes, picked up our friends, Isaac, Lauren, Amy, and some others and decided to hit the town. We heard about a place called Bar Street where, guess what, all the bars are. We took two taxi’s, and this time we successfully ended up at the same place. We started walking down the main drag and tere was bar after bar after bar. We went into a few but they were very expensive and very touristy with SAS kids everywhere. Zach, Isaac, and I wanted to actually go to a local bar and try and meet some local people, but the rest of the group didn’t. We split off from them and got off the main drag. We walked down a side street where there were a lot of Chinese people. We went into a few bars until we found one we liked called “Shooters.” We started talking to two local girls who could speak English pretty well. We spent most of the night there until we decided to walk around some more. We walked back to the main street where we saw a cop car with its lights on and a big group of people. We decided to check it out to see what was going on. We were walking by and it looked like a big group of Chinese people, as we were passing, we saw one SASer in the middle of the group that we knew, his name is Edwin. He saw us walking by and ran up to us and started blabbering about why he was in trouble with the cops and surrounded by a group of Chinese people. He was fairly inebriated, which is never a good idea in a foreign country that you don’t know, and especially not in China where the police are not the most friendly people. Apparently what happened was that he was with a group of SAS kids that got really drunk at a bar, and for some unknown reason, one of them (according to Edwin it wasn’t him) kicked a BMW and dented it. While they were walking away the owner of the car came over and said it was Edwin and called the cops. All the other kids left and it was Edwin alone with two officers and about ten Chinese people. Half of them were saying Edwin did it and half of them were saying he wasn’t the one. Whatever the case, Edwin had to pay off the police officer so he wouldn’t be brought to jail so he asked my friend Isaac to loan him some money so he could get out of it. Isaac gave him some money and he got enough to pay off the officers, they all left, and he stumbled away. We tried to get him into a taxi to get home but he found some other SAS kids and started hanging out with them so we hopped in our own taxi, went back to the hotel and went to sleep.

We woke up the next morning early, hopped on the bus, and went to Tiananmen Square. It was a huge open stone square with a stone column in the middle, the capital building on one side, and the Forbidden City on the other. There were lots of soldiers walking around on patrol and lots of other tour groups there. We walked through the square from one end to the other, stopping here and there for small history lessons. We eventually made our way to the gateway of the Forbidden City where the giant portrait of Mao Zedong hung over the central entrance. There are seven entrances to the Forbidden City. The center and biggest one is for the Emperor and the Emperor only. The two to the left and right are for the Emperor’s advisors and officials, then the two farther out are for guests of the Emperor, and the outer two exits are for servants and workers. We entered the first gateway into the first courtyard. There were pagoda style walls all around and a big empty courtyard in the middle. We went through the second gateway where there was another similar courtyard but slightly larger. Lastly, we went through the third gateway where there was an enormous stone courtyard with a frozen river going through it. At the other side of the courtyard was a large stone staircase going up to the main palace of the Forbidden City. The main palace, along with most other buildings in the Forbidden City, was painted beautiful and vibrant reds, greens, and yellows with gold trimmings. We couldn’t see the interior of the buildings, but the outsides were amazing. The thing that surprised me the most was how big the city was. I thought we were at the end when we got to the palace, but our tour guide walked past it and into a maze of alleyways and smaller courtyards. This is where all the servants and consorts lived. The Emperor could have hundreds of different consorts, but only one wife. There were beautiful courtyards and gardens with stone sculptures, metal sculptures, fountains, trees, and beautiful natural rock formations. After winding through these for quite a while we emerged on the other side of the city where the bus picked us up. We drove about ten minutes to the area where all the Beijing locals live and we got off the bus and got onto a rickshaw. Rickshaws are the little two person seats that are pulled by a bicycle. We all paired up, hopped into a rickshaw and went for a ride. I was with my friend Amy and we were in the back of our group of rickshaws. Our driver was hilarious and kept trying to pass all the other rickshaws and kept ramming the cart with my friends in front of us. We winded trough alleyways and small streets until we got to a small local house where we were going to have lunch with a local family and learn how to make dumplings. We got off and walked in to the very small, single story house where the woman, Madame Fung, had set up two tables for our group of fifteen. She brought out delicious dishes of chicken, rice, tofu, and all the other Chinese foods, but it was by far the best food I had in China. She and her daughter spent three hours that day preparing it for us and I thoroughly enjoyed it. She even had this one really good dish where she cooked chicken in Coca-Cola. After dinner, we got to ask her questions about her local life while our tour guide translated for us. Then, she brought out dough circles and filling for us to make dumplings. We put some stuffing in the center of the dough circle and folded it up, how a dumpling should look. Apparently I didn’t do a very good job because Madame Fung, her daughter, and my tour guide all pointed and laughed at mine and said, “Ha ha ha. That is a very special dumpling!” After we folded our dumpling, it was time to leave and take our rickshaw back to the bus. We all took a group photo before we left and the rickshaw ride to the bus was just as exciting as the one to the house. After getting on the bus we headed for one of the places I was most excited for: the Olympic Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube. We pulled up at the Bird’s Nest, hopped out, and pretty much ran inside. At the time we were there, there was a winter festival going on and they had filled the interior with snow and set up sled runs and a whole bunch of snow games. There were also a few stages for performers. We didn’t have much time there, so we ran around, snapping photos, and looking at the amazing architecture. After exploring a bit, we walked outside and went to go check out the Water Cube. Unfortunately, the interior was under renovation so we could not go inside, but the exterior looks really really cool. I am sure you have all seen it, and it is just a rectangular building that is decorated like bubbles. It was pretty awesome. After we explored, we got back onto the bus and headed for a silk factory. We got a quick tour of the factory where we saw the whole silk process. We get silk from the cocoon of the Silk Worm. They soak the cocoon, take the cocoon apart layer by layer, stretch it out, and let it dry. The silk is surprisingly strong, and you can’t rip it very easily. Then they thread the silk through a machine that rolls it up so it can be used as thread. After we saw this process, we got to feel samples of different silks, then of course, were led into the shop at the end where we could purchase items. We didn’t spend very long there because we wanted to get to the Pearl Market that closed in a bit. We quickly headed over there and entered the Pearl Market which is a huge four story building filled with different vendors and stands. All the floors had different types of items, and at the top floor, hence its name, was pearls. I was with my friend Carson through this shopping experience which was fairly overwhelming. The vendors would grab your arm and pull you to your stand and you had to fight your way away. This was the first place where we really got to haggle, which I love. When they see tourists, they always try and severely rip you off, for example, my friend got a jacket from 1200 yuan down to 200 yuan. Carson got a small purse from 395 yuan down to 80 yuan. They always say the same hilarious things such as, “I give you good price,” “I give you student discount,” and, to whatever your starting bid may be, “ohhhh, you joke, you joke, this is high quality!” After the sensory overload of colors, sounds, and physical harassment, we took a taxi back to the hotel to meet up with the bus to go out to a roast duck dinner. We went across town to another large table, lazy susan restaurant where we sat down and started our normal dinner of rice, chicken and pork. About halfway through the dinner, about four chefs came out each with a huge roasted duck, and they started cutting it up right in front of our table. They would cut slices onto plates and put the plates on our lazy susan where we would consume it. It was the best duck I have ever had. It was delicious. After dinner we headed back to the hotel where we walked around for a bit before getting too tired and then went to bed.

We woke up early again, piled on the bus, and went to a Kung Fu school in Beijing. We got a welcome dance, as we walked up to the school, from four men in two tiger outfits. The guy in front was the front legs and controlled the face, and the guy in back controlled the back legs. We entered the main auditorium where they put on an awesome show of amazing Kung Fu moves and jumping and leaping. They demonstrated different weapons and I saw a guy break a big bowl with his finger, another guy had a thick wooden stick be broken on his back, and the most amazing feat was a man put the tip of a practice spear on his neck (a long six foot spear with a relatively dull tip) while another man held it in place and the man who had the tip on his neck walked towards the other guy until the spear bent and snapped in half. After a few demonstrations of quite impressive skills, we got to go up on the stage, play with the practice weapons, and take pictures with the Kung Fu students. We took a few pictures of mid-air jumping kicks and whatnot, and talked with the students for a while. Afterwards, we headed for the bus where it was about an hour and a half to the Great Wall of China. On the ride up the bus played a few games and if you lost you had to do a song or dance in front of the bus on a microphone, it turns out that the same guy lost three times in a row, so he just stayed at the front of the bus for the rest of the ride playing DJ by holding up his iPod to the microphone. On the ride to the wall, there wasn’t much to look at until the very end. Most of the ride was undeveloped flat land that wasn’t terribly exciting. Near the end we started heading into the mountains where we passed a huge frozen lake and through a forest filled with dead deciduous trees. We stopped for lunch about ten minutes away from the wall and had lunch at a nice lazy susan restaurant but this one had lots of trees inside and was decorated like a tropical jungle. After lunch we hopped back onto the bus and drove the last few miles up to the wall. We drove to the base of the ridge that the Great Wall was situated on top of. We got into a gondola and took it from the base of the ridge right up to the edge of the Wall. The ride up was pretty spectacular but, since it was winter, the normally lush green trees on the mountains were all dead and brown. The Wall was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. It was very tall, wide, and snaked across the top of all the mountain ridges until it was out of eyesight. There was a guard tower every 100 meters or so that you had to pass through to walk along the wall. This was the best day that I had on this trip. I was pretty much speechless for the entire two and a half hours we spent on the wall. We walked from the gondola station to the place on the wall where we went down which was about a mile. We even (probably illegally) climbed the outside of one of the guard towers up to the top where we got a spectacular view of all around the wall. There were a lot of steps as the wall went up and down and the steps were uneven and slanted, so you had to always watch where you were going. There was snow in the shadows of the wall which add a beautiful effect, and the mountain range next to us had little watch towers scattered across it. You could look back to the valley we came from and see the small town which we passed through and all the terraced fields above it. We walked around, completely awestruck, until we reached the point where we descended. The best thing about this is that we didn’t walk down, nor did we take the gondola down, but what we did was toboggan down. Not an actual snow toboggan, it was more of a dry bobsled thing where we were on little sleds with wheels and we went down a metal chute that twisted and turned its way down the mountain. I was going really fast until about halfway down when I got stuck behind a man and his son going quite slowly. The good thing about this was that I got to see more scenery. We reached the bottom where we shopped at a small market, buying Great Wall trinkets, for about twenty minutes before piling back on the bus and making the long trek back to Beijing. We arrived at our dinner restaurant, which was another lazy susan dinner with the same chicken, pork, and rice dishes. After dinner we went to a Chinese acrobatic show which was absolutely spectacular. It was in a fancy theater with amazing lights, lasers, smokescreens, and sets. I saw some awesome feats of balance and coordination. I saw about fifteen girls pile on to one bicycle and ride it around the stage, I saw an amazing pile of people and boards piled and balanced up to about thirty feet in the air, and some spectacular vaulting and jumping through hoops. The most amazing thing about this was that there were no safety mats or nets, the only safety equipment they had was for anyone who was over thirty feet in the air and all they had was a small rope. They never even got the rope taught until the person jumped off and they were lowered to the ground. The show lasted about an hour and a half which wasn’t nearly long enough. We headed back to the hotel when the show was all over and we decided to go out and get ice cream. Carson, Spencer, Stephanie, Emily, Katie, and I went out to McDonalds and got some quick ice cream treats. After our snack, we went to the bakery that was near the hotel and picked up some pastries for the morning because we had a very early flight. After picking up some snacks, we decided that it was our last night in Beijing and that we need to embrace the Chinese culture and buy some fireworks. This night was the seventh night of Chinese New Year, and every night we had heard and seen constant fireworks. It almost sounded like a warzone, all day every day, with the noise from the explosions. We found a firework store on the corner which had a huge selection. We were trying to spend a lot of out yuan, because our next stop was Hong Kong where they don’t accept yuan and instead use the Hong Kong Dollar. We bought a big bag and headed for the street. There are no real firework laws in the cities and you just light them off in the middle of the street between skyscrapers. It is all cement and there is nothing that can really catch on fire. We even had a police officer come over and enjoy the fireworks for a bit with us before he strolled off again. After the fireworks, we all went back to the hotel and passed out because our alarm was set for 0345 because we had to depart the hotel at 0430 to head for the airport for out flight to Hong Kong.

We woke up the next morning, tired and groggy, stumbled onto the bus. Surprisingly I stayed up on the twenty minute ride to the airport. This airport check-in wasn’t as smooth as the others because since Honk Kong is separate from China, we had to go through customs and immigration which took a long time because all 96 kids in our tour group were checking-in at the same time. We got through eventually, waited a bit for our flight, we all got on, and I pretty much passed out for the whole 4 hour and 45 minute flight. We landed in Hong Kong around 1130 on a very foggy and cloudy day. Getting off the plane was a shock to me. We went from about 30 degree weather with super dry air to about 80 degree humid weather. For those of you who know me, I do not handle heat and humidity very well, which is unfortunate since I will soon be going to Vietnam, India, Ghana, and Brazil. The only country that won’t be hot and humid will be South Africa. After waiting for everyone to regroup at the end of the airport, we all hopped on busses and rode them back to the MV Explorer docked in Kowloon, which is the closest point of land to Hong Kong Island. We ran onto the ship, threw our bags in our room, then Carson, Sarah, Isaac, and I headed for the Star Ferry to get to Hong Kong. The Star Ferry costs about 30 cents U.S. or 2.50 Hong Kong Dollars. It is about a five minute ferry ride across with stunning views of the city and Victoria Peak behind it. We got off the ferry and decided we were hungry so we set off for a restaurant we had heard about. We hopped on the subway and took it a couple stops to the other side of the city. We got off and found our restaurant which was called The Modern Toilet. It is a pretty funny restaurant where all the seats are toilets and the food is served in fake bedpans and minitoilets. They had all types of food there and I got what is called a hotpot, which is pretty much a big bowl of soup with assorted things thrown in. There is also a fire under it which keeps it hot and the food cooking. In the hotpot there was shrimp, slices of meat, tofu, vegetables, and a whole bunch of unrecognizable stuff, but it was all pretty good. After lunch, we decided to head for the mid-levels escalator, which is the largest stretch of escalators and moving walkways in the world. Hong Kong is on an island which is pretty much just one mountain, Victoria, sticking out of the ocean. This means that the city is built on a hillside and the farther in you go, the higher you go. What they did was build a massive moving walkway and escalator system that brings people up, but it is mostly used by locals going to their apartments away from the waterfront buildings. It is a great way to see a lot of the city. We rode it all the way to the top, and started walking back down, and we made it about halfway until we decided to take a cab because we were taking a really long time and we wanted to get back to the ship to watch the Hong Kong laser show, and then go out to dinner. We hopped in a cab, went to the Star Ferry, rode across, changed, and headed up to the top deck. The laser show wasn’t what I thought it would be, but it was still pretty good. All the buildings lit up in cool patterns and some shot powerful green lasers across the bay. After the light show, we decided to head back to Hong Kong, but this time it was just Carson, Sarah, and I. We got a quick bit to eat at a fast food restaurant and headed back across to Hong Kong. We were going to an area known as Lan Kwai Fong, which was the main bar street of the city. When we got there, it was already packed with SAS kids. We got their fairly late and a lot of people were in every bar and club and hanging out in the street. It was mostly a pedestrian street which made a really good social atmosphere. We got a drink at one bar, socialized, moved to another, and repeated. We stayed for a little bit, then went home with one of the funniest cab drivers that I have ever ridden with. He seemed like a normal guy, and talked on the phone for about half the cab ride, but when he got off, he started driving fast and making high-pitched funny noises. He didn’t really speak any English but he would just repeat everything we said really high pitched and with a Chinese accent. He got us to the ship safely where we got on and went to bed.

The next day I woke up early to try and get a few sunrise pictures over Hong Kong, I think I got a few keepers. Afterwards, I had a nice long breakfast with a few of my friends and we all discussed our plans for the day. When I was done eating I met up with Carson and we got our stuff for the day packed and we headed out for the Star Ferry. We took it across and started heading up through the city to the free zoo and botanical garden. It was a pretty long all uphill climb in hot and humid weather, but the scenery was awesome. This day was a lot sunnier than the previous and Hong Kong has some of the most amazing architecture I have ever seen. We finally made it up to the zoo, and it was a lot better than I had expected. There were monkeys from around the world, tortoises, awesome exotic birds, and some small ground mammals. It was beautiful; it was a small patch of green nature in the dead center of a cement and steel city. It was almost junglesque, with tropical lush trees outside all the exhibits. After looking at the animals for a bit, we took a quick stroll through the botanical garden, which was very nice. There was a beautiful fountain in the center, with small streams and rivers flowing around all the plats. There were a few people there practicing meditation and some sort of Tai Chi. After spending some time there, we headed for the Peak Tram, which is the trolley that goes to the top of Victoria Peak. The trolley ride was incredibly steep; I would say about 45 degrees. The tram needs a big wheel at the top that actually pulls it up the mountain because it is way too steep for any normal wheels. When we got to the top, the view was spectacular. We could see all of downtown Hong Kong and far into Kowloon. Unfortunately, it was very humid and muggy, so the normal air visibility wasn’t terribly far, but it was still amazing. Carson and I started walking to what we thought was a lookout, but it turns out we were on the Dragon’s Back Trail, which is the trail that goes all the way around the top of Victoria Peak. We circled the top of the mountain, getting spectacular views over all sides of the island. After our hike, we hopped back on the tram and headed down the mountain. When we got off, we started meandering our way back down to the Star Ferry, looking for a place to eat. We found one near the harbor area, got a quick bite, and hopped on the ferry. We rode it back to Kowloon and decided to go to the Lady’s Market, in downtown Kowloon. We hailed a cab and headed on our way. We got there and it was extraordinarily crowded. It was just like any other market bazaar with stands everywhere selling miscellaneous items. We both purchased one or two things and then we realized it was time to head back to the ship. We got in another cab and got dropped off at the port. I still had a few Hong Kong dollars to spend so we stopped at a candy store that was near the ship and bought a few treats. We boarded the ship about half an hour before On Ship Time at 1800. When I got back on the ship, I ate dinner and had lots of conversations with all of my friends about all of their China adventures. After dinner, we had to do our second Muster Drill, which took a while and was quite uneventful. The Muster Drill is where you practice going to your emergency lifeboat stations in case there is a disaster. We have to do a few of these on the voyage to make sure that we remember how to do it (it isn’t that hard, but some kids still have trouble). The ship was scheduled to pull out at 2000, right during that night’s laser show. Most of the kids were out on deck while the ship departed from the dock and made its way back out to open sea. When the ship was away from all the lights and sounds of Hong Kong, I went back to my room and fell asleep rather quickly, thus beginning our (only) two day voyage to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, which afterwards I will update my blog again.