"beijing is the new mojito"

we just got back from beijing today so get ready for the mother of all massive super fantastic posts! so get comfortable cause this is gonna be a long one (but i guarantee it won't take you as long to read this as it did for me to put it all together. fuck.) ok and as for the title, it doesn't really make sense but just go with it... (sarah came up with it!) i'm feeling pretty tired but i'm happy cause we're finally doing laundry. as in i'll be washing my hoodie and fleece that i've been wearing every single day and my 2 pairs of pants for the first time since arriving in china. yum! well i think i'll have to use some organizational skills here and have sub-sections for this post just cause we did so much there that really, posting about so much all at one time is quite the feat. aren't i fancy shmancy!? so here we go:

:: day 1

so we took the uber long overnite train ride into beijing and well i guess i have to get over my claustraphobia cause it sure wasn't roomy. also, going on that train, i looked the absolute hottest i have ever looked. i wore john's alpine sweatpants and i think it really pulled together my whole new look. don't i look just sooo warm and cheerful all bundled up and cozy in my bunk?



we arrived in the afternoon and proceeded to wander on over to the forbidden city. me and mao mao:

side note, the entire time in beijing i would absolutely have to go into every single official olympics store i passed by to squeal and awwwww because i am madly in love with the olympics friendlies. AWWWWWW:

:: day 2

we went to the forbidden city but unfortunately what my audio guide told me was "the most magnificent building" was closed for renovations. (they did drape the entire building with a tarp that had a fucking life size PICTURE of the building though. i guess they figured that would be almost as good as seeing the building itself.) i ain't gonna let that get me down though!




this is the concubines' residence. it's nothing too special but you know i love me some wenches.

after that, we crossed the street over to the famous tian'anmen square where i proceeded to sprawl myself out in the middle of it and revel in its history and bloodshed. also where i bought my super fantastic arm-waving mao watch.

then that nite we wandered around in some of the outdoor markets. they sell some crazy shit there ranging from little terra cotta warrior statues to....saddam hussein playing cards. yay communism? actually i kinda wanted to buy the cards just cause that's so fucked up.


there was one street just lined with little food stands. apparently food includes scorpions and grasshoppers:

:: day 3

this was the big day: the great wall! so apparently like 90% of tourists go to the badaling great wall but we went to simatai which is about 3 hours from where we were staying. we took a bus into a town outside of beijing where we then had a private driver take us there and wait around for us to drive us back as well. he looked totally country and rocked long hair and a mean moustache, he was so gansta.
i think simatai's supposed to be the most authentic and challenging so clearly it wasn't my choice to go there but i'm glad we did. we saw hardly anybody else up there cause i guess only the hardcore travellers go there and at some parts you have to get in there with both hands to climb it. even climbing up to get to the wall i thought i was going to literally die. as you may recall, i thought walking up to the pagoda in hangzhou was going to be the end of me so imagine this ordeal! however, i did not die and after a little while it wasn't so bad. the air was super cold and crip, the sights were absolutely amazing and i felt very accomplished. anyway, we took like a kajillion pictures so here's just a selection of some of them:

we took these dinky little gondolas up to near the great wall. how romantic.




this is taken at the highest point we could climb to because any further was illegal to go on. so we parked our asses, took out our tube of chips and took it all in.




this is me frolicking around with my lovely little old great wall lady friend (more like she's helping me navigate the terrain cause im a pussy and she's like a super strong wonderwoman). she followed us around and chatted us up basically so that we would fall in love with her and buy souvenirs from her. she's super awesome at her job cause she's so adorable that i totally made john buy overpriced shit from her. i love her forever and always.







:: day 4

so the nite before we go to an all you can drink club with some people from our hostel and an old high school classmate and her foreigner posse. it was great times and resulted in me giggling and sitting in some danish boys' room at 5 am helping cut some dude's hair with mini scissors. however, this proved to not be such a great idea the following day. basically this day was a total write-off and i spent the day in pain from both the great wall (i am in horrid, horrid shape) and the club. we went to the china national museum and ended up falling asleep on a bench. at nite we went out for the famous peking duck. ours came with the duck's head under all the meat; a nice little surprise! his name is mr. quackers and he was pretty tasty.


:: day 5

so apparently cause i'm overeager and desperately want to make up for the previous day, i drag john outta bed super early and we go to the mao memorial hall. it was pretty fucked up. they sell flowers right outside and people just buy them up and lay them down in front of a giant statue of mao. basically they herd you in through the hall like cattle and you file past mao's dead body. this may seem kinda sick but the entire time i was just thinking of snow white (there's just always a disney connection with me) cause he was just lying there chilling in a glass coffin. so like snow white, cept not a hot babe and with soldiers and tons of security. plus his head seemed all lit up so he had kind of a creepy orange glow about him. anyway.....

then we went to the summer palace and its got a merchant street, a bunch of temples, a giant lake, an island...basically a massive playground for the royals.


in the middle of the palace is kunming lake and it was all frozen over so despite the "do not step on ice" signs plastered all over the place, we just had to join all the other punk-ass rebels out in the middle of the lake
.

there's a famous 'boat' on the shore of the lake and john decided to get up on it and do the titanic.







ok, ive been doing this post for literally hours, my ass hurts from sitting on the ground and i've had enough so that's it for now. i think we're going to pizza hut for dinner (they have tons of them out here and they're all super posh and popular) so we're off!