My friends, Amanda (Mac Momma / Group Leader), Shauna (the American Dancing Goddess), and I (the Scorpion Queen) decided to take a trip to Beijing for our summer vacation. Everyday was packed with tourist attractions, photo ops, and broccoli, lots of broccoli!
We did the essentials: Lama Temple, a rickshaw ride, 2008 Olympic Park (the Birds Nest), the GREAT WALL OF CHINA, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven and much more! All of these things were so beautiful and the Great Wall was... beyond words.
Although what we saw was incredible, what happened on our trip was what really made it memorable. I thought that China and Korea would be very similar; boy was I wrong. I did not get glared at, pointed at (much), people did not run into me, and they were very warm and welcoming. Not sure if I felt like a freak show or a celebrity, but everywhere we went, people were taking our pictures. The brave would come up to us and ask if they could take a photo with us. It was like a domino effect, once the first person asked, it wouldn't stop! This happened everyday, at almost every tourist attraction, and would last anywhere from 2-10 minutes; people would just be circled around us!
The kids were so cute, but we noticed that a lot of kids were running around without clothes on (even in restaurants) and if they were wearing clothes, the babies, the crotch of their pants was cut out for potty training purposes that I do not understand. I wanted to take a picture, but I thought it was a little too inappropriate. I saw many kids just pop a squat to make anywhere the new bathroom.
Speaking of bathrooms; GROSS! Squatters. Try not to pee on yourself while trying not to pass out from the stench of you name it. No toilet paper. Everything is wet. Everything is dirty. And did I mention the smell?
On our first day we took a ripshaw ride; or so we called it. We decided to take a rickshaw ride around town. The guides told us they would charge us half price 80CYN instead of 160! Great! So we hopped on and they took us to a few 'tourist spots'. All of these places charged a fee to get in to; we paid for the first few, but decided we would be just as happy taking our pictures outside. At one point the guides tried to leave us - this was the point that our 80CYN got us to. We were in the middle of nowhere and had to pay them another 80 to finish our tour. So much for half price... But it was so much fun!
I ran out of money on day 3! How that happened I have no idea, but I ran out! I brought my Korean ATM cards with me, but not one of them worked. When I went to use my American credit card (that I spent hours searching my tiny Korean apt. for), I found out that it was expired! My friends really saved my ass and loaned me money for the rest of the trip, but if you were expecting a cool souvenir from China you're SOL!
When we were on the Great Wall, there were these little Chinese ladies that were following us and "helping you [us], because we friends". All in a ploy to sell us some crappy souvenirs - that we had no desire to buy. When we got to the end and I outright refused to buy anything, I am pretty sure the little Chinese lady put a curse on me!
We ate broccoli at every meal because we do not see much broccoli in Korea. We had a hell of a time trying to order it though because they call it green cauliflower - something we did not find out until the last day of our trip.
Surprisingly, Chinese food in China tastes the same as Chinese food in American and in Korea. Except everything has peanuts in it and the KungPow chicken is... WOW! Good stuff!And, THEY HAVE RED BULL IN CHINA!!!!!!!
My friends and I ate scorpion at the night market. I ate a massive, black guy and got my nickname for the trip "the Scorpion Queen".
And last, but certainly not least - our last night in Beijing. We had a few beers and were walking around a bar/shopping district. Vendors were encouraging one and all to come into their places. On our way back from a public toilet, a very nice man asked us to come into his bar. He lead us to a table and even sat down to talk to us - in English! He waved a few girls over and we ordered a beer. Next thing we know, there are two girls dressed in black sitting at our table, drinking beers with us. When a male customer would come in and all the girls would rush to the door and line up - yep, you guessed it, we were in a whore house! I swear, it was just like the movies. The guy would choose a girl and they would disappear into a room. Everyone else would just go back to what they were doing!
Before I knew what was happening, I was getting felt up by 7 Chinese prostitutes. At that, we paid an ungodly amount for our beers and high-tailed it out of there!
All of these things just made a great trip, even better!
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