factory tour/dinner/KTV anyone?

So when we had lunch Sunday with John Bond he mentioned his LED light factories and was talking about them and somewhere in the conversation he invited us to go to one of the factories.So Friday we met at the Bond Office and met up with John. We drove to this Warsony LED light factory. They specialize in LED lights and solar panels and whatnot.

So we went to the factory and thought we'd go inside and see the whole factory. Yea no. We sat in a room and were introduced to Cheky, the factory owner (also John's good friend) and some other men while we drank our hot water (no tea for us..). We then got brought to an exhibition room and saw some of their sample products and lights and lamps and lightbulbs and stuff. We probably spent like 45 minutes there and we went outside to see some of the more street lamp-ish type lights or the bigger ones. And living in a lighting city i've seen my fair share of lights and these were better looking ones. And it was way neat because they were all solar powered.

Callie, Cheky, Me and Chantelle


Me and Tina :)

Well John told us that he was going to take us to dinner along the Pearl River where we could look out on the water front and see the vessels that go by (he pronounced it wessels). But we were outside and he's like well i have to run. And we're like what? so John straight up ditched us haha and left us with the Warsony business people. Tina was with us so we were okay. So we get into a van and drive to a restaurant where we enjoyed the company of Cheky, about 6 other workers (our driver was like the person in charge of sales or something idk). there was like 5 guys and a girl and we just had a quaint chinese meal with them. They were very entertaining company. Some spoke no english but the girl was pretty good. I'm pretty sure we just amused them the whole night.


Then they invited us along to KTV! YA!!! haha. KTV, they're everywhere, its these places where you go reserve a room, eat, drink and karaoke. Its actually really really fun, i wish they had it back in the states. So we get there and we told them that we didnt drink alcohol (they were disappointed) so we got never ending coke (one of my favorite parts) and just enjoyed the night. We played dice drinking games with them with our coke which was actually really fun these guys are hillarious. We were at the coke table the table next to us was the alcohol table. haha. It was fun. Jae and me busted out a couple of good songs, wannabe by spice girls, scrub by TLC, we all did Hey Jude and just a bunch more. It was such a good night. And they bring you so much food, but we were so full from dinner but i probably drank my weight in coka cola. Hey if its free i'm taking full advantage of it.

rocking Hey Jude

Then Peter, our driver just took us home (who was a little intoxicated but thats how they roll in china i spose). Poor Tina, the petitest woman i have ever known, had a bit much to drink (it doesnt take alot for her) and on the ride home just layed on my shoulder as we sang a chinese folk song she taught me and the songs we teach our kindergarteners. The whole night put me in a really bad i dont want to leave china in two months mood.

so i'm soaking it up like a sponge..(bob?)


wo ai zhong guo. ♥

sundays are bestdays

So our plan for sunday was to go to Xiaolan and watch the saturday session of General Conference because the branch burnt us a copy. We were going to do all four hours and then next sunday do all four hours of Sunday session.
So we get there and we're almost through the morning session and Callie gets a call from Tina. Tina told us that John Bond wants to take us out to lunch. (We work for Bond Language Institute, John Bond is the Bond of the Bond Language Institute, just fyi). And he wanted to meet us in half an hour (which is how long it takes us to get from Xiaolan to Guzhen. If it was anybody else except John we would've declined but we're like.. its John. So we apologized to the girls that we had to leave early and set out for Guzhen. Only one problem, we usually take the free shuttle, and it wasnt running at that time. So we got to have the pleasure of riding motor taxis. Want to know the most awkward thing? Riding on a motor taxi in a SKIRT holding onto a small asian man (because theres not a lot that are bigger than me) for dear life while we're speeding through traffic, barely missing cars and going wherever the heck we want on the road, because thats how motor taxis roll. But yea.. way awkard and somebody needs to tell china its not nice to stair.
So we all met up at the five star hotel in Guzhen (its by our grocery store and thats where Tina told us to meet). So John invited all of the bond teachers (Tina, Gary, Harry, Dom and Peter) and all of us ILP teachers. So we go into this restaurant on the second floor and all i see is VIP signs above the doors. And we're led into this room where John is already sitting. Suuuuuch a nice resutaurant. We're sitting in this overly nice adorned room with a chandelier and people that sit and watch you eat and see if you need anything. And it was such good food. One of the best meals I think, but probably because it tasted like money. haha. But it was a good time. You can tell John is filthy rich and such a business man but he is so nice and down to earth and funny. And its always fun to hang out with Dom and Harry. Its times like that that i'm going to miss when i'm back home. Because I'm pretty sure i'm not going to be invited to any special VIP lunches in 5 star hotel restaurants anytime soon.
So what was a fairly good day turned into an awesome day in china.

oh and last night chantelle said i was mumbling in my sleep and then i said really loud "Sit down! 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!" .... like we do with the kids....
i'm so embarassed.

and happy birthday megan. :)


ps. so saturday it POURED, like all day nonstop. it was actually way cool and just reminded me of home. but seriously it was just pouring and pouring and didn stop. we opened up our sliding doors and just watched and listened to it all day.....
yea turns out we got some of Typhoon Neoguri. there have been some reports of some deaths because of it in other areas, but all we got was a cool rainstorm.

and life goes on..

in case you thought i died. i didnt. i'm still here.

updates:

we met a couple in our grocery store, Sanya and Charles. Sanya is from Peru and Charles is from Pennsylvania. Charles is here on business, he's in the lighting business. (you can pretty much assume any not-chinese people that are in guzhen, work in the lighting industry, thats why people dont get why 4 americans would come to guzhen). We actually talked to them at the grocery store for like 45 minutes (you can imagine the stares we were getting). And Sanya invited us over to their apartment and she said she'd cook for us! We were so excited. CUTEST COUPLE ever (probably in their late 20's early 30's). They are so much fun! We spent like 5 hours over at their apartment we just ate, talked, laughed and enjoyed some good ol english speaking company. Sanya made us some pasta dishes and this fried tortilla and corn things that were so good. And she made us pudding! They leave in a couple weeks which is a pity because i think we could've become really good friends with them. But we were so happy we could meet them.

For english corner (every saturday Bond hosts this thing where chinese people can come practice their english, we come to speak english with them) we went to the arcade here it town. Haha. It was crazy. Soo loud. Thats something we've gotten used to here is that everything is just loud. Theres constant noise everywhere, but the arcade was especially loud. It was so much fun. Gary had these coupons for like 5 free tokens. So it was Chantelle, Callie, and me, Tina, Gary, Bella (Gary's wife) and Harry (brit) from Bond and some of the regulars that come to english corner. The basketball hoops were pretty popular. Chantelle and I beat Tina at air-hockey (which she called ping pong.. oh tina, we told her what its really called). Um chantelle and me raced a couple of times on those race-car games. They made me do a motorcycle racing game where you actually have to get on a motorcycle. Gary and Harry were playing this soccer game the whole time. Over all it was soo much fun. Oh my gosh, Bella, Gary's wife is HILLARIOUS. She's a stouter women and a bit harsh speaking wise but she is soo funny. They have this raffle at the arcade that a bunch of people get pretty into. And I walked over with tina to the crowd to see if she had a winning ticket and we see Bella and she had like 20 tickets in her hand. Haha. So there was this table full of the prizes and baskets and I cracked Tina up by telling her tina, i'm going to just go up there and grab the prizes and turn to the guy reading the numbers and just be like "xie xie, thank you, xie xie". haha. and just leave the arcade. I told her they probably wouldnt stop me they'd just be so confused and just be like stupid american girl.. just let her go. Then Bella said i should just go up there and take the microphone from the guy and read off her ticket and she'll take the prize. It was a pretty great night.

Oh and so april 1st was our halfway mark. And every semester the heads of ILP make their way around to every city in all the countries that ILP is in and they do a routine check up. So this last monday Jared and Casey came to Zhongshan (usually its steve and casey but steve couldnt make it). So we got observed and analyzed and all that good stuff. Mostly they just want to check up and see how we're doing and making sure everythings okay. They are super nice guys. And it was fun because our school took us out to lunch with them, so free meal, thats a plus. And we just had some meetings and just hung out with them. I was way stressing about it, but it wasnt as bad as i thought it was going to be. So that was pretty exciting and eventful i spose.

Little kid stories:

Yesterday my class got really mad at me. They've been trying to say something to be about my rule chart for a couple days but yesterday we finally understood each other. I had made a bigger rule chart and thought it was missing so i made a smaller one, but then i found the other one so I've had 2 rule charts. One I hang up, the other we use to go over the rules. Well Stella and Yaya were getting really really mad at me for some reason. And they kept saying teacher Chantelle! teacher Chantelle! And i'm like what? Teacher chantelle has a rule chart. And we'd move on. So finally yesterday they had had enough. They were like no you rule chart! Teacher Chantelle! and i finally snapped and was like no. This is my rule chart and this is my rule chart, Teacher Chantelle can make her own rule chart if she doesnt have one. (but i knew she had one). Well turns out Chantelle's rule chart was ripped. And oh my gosh with these kids, if something has a tear, or a spot of something on it, or a smidge of imperfection to it they cant stand it. So they were saying it wasnt fair that i had two and chantelle had a broken one. So they had made up in their mind that i should give Chantelle my extra chart. Oh my gosh. Yea so i gave chantelle my rule chart this morning, and she's like oh no, i can make another one. And i'm like, no you're taking this one or my kids will never forgive me. So today in class I was like look! i only have one rule chart, i gave the other to teacher chantelle (which i then had teacher chantelle, who is on the other side of the room, hold up and show them). Haha. Yaya and Stelle were so pleased. Yaya was like oh Teacher Jessica! You so good! You so good!. haha.
yea.. so then later today they got upset at me again. I taught shop this week which is you have to build something and then take it apart. So we made snowmen today. Lesson learned, dont make things that kids will get attached to and then tell them you have to take it apart. They were so angry at me. I told them we'd make snowmen they can take home next week, but they were still pretty bitter. We sang once there was a snowman so when we took it apart i told them the sun had come out and that the snowman was melting. The other two classes handled it better. But i'm still pretty sure my class will hold that against me until we make snowmen they can keep.

and oh my gosh. so this is probably the humid-est (?) (haha) place i've ever been. Its ridiculous. But with the cold we really didnt mind. But holy crap. It's warmed up here and lets just say if its this hot in april i dont want to know how its going to be in june. Its just gross. You feel sticky, your clothes feel sticky. its just bad. But plus side, i'm going to at least come back tan. yay.

and i'm sorry for how long it took me to write a new blog. I promise i'll do a better job. :)
67 days left.

Beijing part 3 of 3

For our last full day in china our itinerary was go to forbidden city (actually go in all the way and look around), silk market and acrobat show.

Forbidden City.
Pretty much one of those its old and important because its part of history deals. It was really cool to go and look around but nothing too spectacular. I mean there were some cool parts and def awesome that we got to be where so many emperors had lived but it was so big and we didnt have a tour guide or anything. But we def got in some good stuff. It was HUGE. The palaces were def cool. We saw some thrones which were cool. We gave ourselves 2 hours so chantelle and me went just exploring. Its really just one big museum just spread out. So we went and saw the marriage hall and the concubine exhibit. We visited the Imperial Gardens (which would've been better without the thousand people shoving their way through). Oh yea so we had stopped by the forbidden city the first day we got to beijing but didnt actually go in, well we soo chose the wrong day to go. There were tour groups up the ying yang there. It was insane. I swear every tour group/school group possible was there. So that was kind of stressful just because there was so many people, but it was still neat. Yea so we just walked around and looked at different sections. One of the amusing parts was the names of these halls and palaces. Just to name a few of the more ridiculous ones: Gate of Heavenly Purity, Palace of Celestial Favour, Palace of Gathered Elegance, and Pavillion of Spreading Righteousness. Haha yea.. i found it quite amusing.
For those who dont exactly know why the Forbidden City is so important (dont read if you dont care):
Historically and artistically one of the most comprehensive Chinese museums. It was the ritual center of two dynasties, the Ming (1368-1644) and the Qing (ching) (1644-1911) and the repository of their extensive collections. It covers over 1,000,000 square miles (buildings alone account for 170,000).
Theres the inner court and outer court. Inner court was for the residences of the emperor and his empress, consorts and concubines but also for administrative activities. The outer court was is the throne halls and other buildings, its where the emperor presided over important ceremonies. Its pretty much the largest and best-preserved palace complex in existance today. Chantelle looked it up and said that its called forbidden city because it was literally forbidden for 500 years. but thats the gist of the background.

Silk Market
One thing that is a must do in beijing of course is shop. Silk market is the place to go. It was ridiculous, actually now that i look back on it its kind of a little bit too ridiculous. We're used to our outside bargaining streets which we love but this was a whole new level of bargaining. Its actually like a mall kind of but instead of stores theres 7 levels of bargaining shops. Theres a floor for shoes and bags, a floor of clothes, another floor of clothes, a floor for jewelry and arts and trinkets, and a floor for silk, and a floor for this and that. It was insane. The thing we loved THEY HAD OUR SIZES!! lol. The thing we hated, the freaking shop salespeople. Ugh. So we're used to like older people and you're bargaining with them and its a game. Like you're trying to get it cheap, and they dont want to give it to you cheap and it just goes back and forth, but its fun, its seriously a game. And after you settle on a price theres no tension and you walk away smiling and whatnot. Haha, not here. Seriously, ugh. All the salespeople were mostly younger (like 20's) girls. And oh my gosh were they whiney and naggy and harrassed you like no other. Usually when we're walking down a bargaining street we get the "Hello!"'s trying to get our attention or the "just looking, just come looking" or "you want to buy". If you ignore them its a sign that clearly you're not interested. Not the silk market, you ignore them and they just start screaming hello at you, and some of them would even grab you on the arm or your shirt and you're just like, "um, no. dont do that". Its funny because everywhere we go their bargaining has its own personalities, like the phrases they use and exactly what they sell and whatnot. Here it was a bunch of "Hello, lady. Lady you come look." "Hello pretty lady you want buy purse." By the end i hated being called lady. And these girls were so whiney. Even when we were bargaining. They'd give a price that was ridiculously too high, so we went for our low price and i swear every single time it was "Are you joking me" accompanied by the most disgusting look on their face. And we're like are you joking me? They ask for something for like 380 yuan (which is RIDICULOUS) so we'd go for 30 yuan (and most of the time get it around 40 or 50). Dont worry mom and dad you're little girls pretty much pro status bargainer. Dont think i'm too nice. Ain't no one ripping me off. We actually have to get a little rude sometimes, but its how the games played sometimes. It was just annoying bargaining but we got some good stuff, for way way cheap of course.
Okay so theres the silk market and the pearl market, we didnt have time to go to the pearl market but girls from Xiaolan went to Beijing during Spring Festival (when we went to guilin and yangshuo) so they actually helped us out a lot but giving us information. They said the pearl market is smaller and the Silk Market actually has more than the pearl market. So i think it was the 5th floor thats devoted to pearls. And oh my gosh. Yes they're real. Theres salt water pearls and fresh water and these are just the lesser nice of the two, but they are still real pearls and their gorgous and CHEAP! You can get a good strand of pearls for about 35 yuan (about $5). And we're actually so so so so so grateful to the Xiaolan girls because they found this place that they got their pearls at. You can bargain at all the other places but this place just gives you a flat rate and its a good price too, about what you could bargain it down to, and without the hassle of bargaining each piece. So we go there and it was just so easy and nice because we just picked out what we wanted and had the price set. You pick out the strands and they actually make the bracelets and necklaces right there (for the regular pearls)(theres also the pre-made stuff). They are just so pretty! I'm a girl... i'm a sucker for that kind of stuff.

Acrobat Show
AMAZING. What these people can do with their bodies. flip. Its kind of controversial just because the details are where these kids came from are kind of sketch.. lets just say its probably not voluntary most of the time and some of them are started as early as 3 years old. But it was way neat to go and see. Most of these kids were probably around like 13 years old, there were older ones but they were so young. And oh my heck. The bodies these boys had was ridiculous. They were pretty much solid muscle. The had the most ripped bodies out of anyone ive seen, but you have to have these kind of bodies for the stuff they do. We were way excited we got to go and it was legit.

After the show we stopped by Wangfujing one more time just because there was more of the bargaining street stuff we're used to and that we couldnt find at the silk market slash didnt want to try and find and bargain. So we went there, its also famous for its street food thats served on sticks. Theres a bunch of meat sticks, including what looks like cockroaches and then scorpions and seahorses and stuff. I got just a regular chicken, or pork.. i cant tell the difference, flip it was probably dog. EW! sorry i shouldnt have said that.. And we had these way good street crepes and candy coated strawberries which are AMAZING.

In my opinion i think we made the most out of our last day in beijing. Beijing equals a pretty cool place.

Beijing Huan Ling Ni.
Beijing Welcomes You.
2008 Summer Olympic Motto.

Beijing part 2 of 3

The day we went to a WALL, it was pretty GREAT

From the Tian'anmen Square area the great wall is actually a 3 hour drive away. So we the night before we booked our tour with the hostel. Bus left at 6am. Yea, ugh. Except we sat on the bus for 20 minutes so technically we didnt leave until 6:20, then we had to go pick up a bunch of other people from their hotels/hostels (which was interesting because me, not knowing other people were coming went to the back of the bus and layed down across like 4 seats, only to be woken up by a bunch people wanting to sit there). Then happy day, everyday is a good day when we get to travel by bus in china. They are so smooth and you dont even notice you're on a bus, you feel like you're floating on a cloud really. (note that that last comment may contain high amounts of sarcasm). Moral of the story, riding on buses and in cars in china in general womps, big time. So i'm thinking i can just sleep on the way there, ha yea.... no. Oh and we got a little klepto on our hands. We were supposed to get breakfast provided (it was like a little sandwich deal thing) but the tour guide told us that we booked it too late and that they didnt have any for us. But there was another bus with us and there were 4 extra meals and no one on the other bus took them and the guy just set them on the seat Chantelle went and snagged us 3 of them (the guy used the fourth to write on).
Okay so theres a lot of different sections of the wall you can go to, just depending on how hard you want it to be and what you feel like doing. Theres a very popular section that most people go to because its easy and whatnot. Then theres a way challenging one that they discourage people over 55 going. Theres like 7 section altogether. So we chose Jinshanling to Simatai section. The lady at the hostel said its pretty popular but it is a 10K hike, you can take a cable car but (and i quote) "i think hiking make it more meaningful".
So we arrive at Jinshanling entrance 5 HOURS (instead of 3). Its pretty much in the mountains away from everything. So we get up there and i look at Chantelle and i'm just like "Chantelle. Where am I. Because i know i'm not on the flipping great wall of china."
Can i just say how lucky i feel that i got to go to the great wall. That i got to see it and experience it. I was just in awe the whole time. And if seeing the great wall wasnt enough it was THE MOST gorgous day in china yet. It was ridiculous. We saw the bluest of skies! (we havent seen real blue skies since we've been here) and the sun was out, it was a bit hot but it felt so good to get some sun. (and yes.. we all got kind of burnt.. and me being smart wore a long sleeve shirt so i rolled it up and now have a tan line in the middle of my arm.. haha)
So you dont walk the great wall, you climb it. Its not a nice flat walk through the park looking around. It was hard! The beginning of Jinshanling is a restored part of the wall and part of Jinshanling and Simatai is the original wall. So that was way neat that we got to see and climb both parts. It was just so neat. I suck at expressing how i really felt, so neat will have to do. So yea, its not all flat. Some parts are but mostly its decline or incline and then theres the super incline. And the stairs were about half the size of my feet and way steep and high and some stairs were rubble and some were just rocks. It was def not what i had in mind. But it was way cool. So once we arrived all these local ladies see tour groups and they grab their bags and they will walk all the way with you, at the end they try to sell you things. So we had some girl and some guy with us. But its actually really cool because they help you and explain stuff to you. And my lady was awesome a couple times it was really steep and i was getting up but obviously was getting a bit tired so like 3 times she took my hand and we would walk up together, she was so strong and steady for such a little person. But then of course at the end they try and sell you this book for 120 yuan, and we told them we didnt have any money, i gave her a 5 yuan because thats all i had and they get kind of mad because they think you're just rich tourists. So we hiked 30 towers and over all it took us 4 hours. By the end we were happy to be done, just because there were a couple parts where i'm pretty sure we were insane to even try it. There was a shortcut that the other girls took and some other people, but then they didnt get the whole wall experience. we get the bragging rights. It was just awesome.
After we were done we got picked up by a van and taken to a restaurant where we got lunch (included in our tour price) and it was WAY good! It was like a chinese mini buffet thing. There was tomato and eggs so i was stoked. (its my favorite china dish so far). The only thing that bummed us out was that our hostel told us that we'd be back by 6, we would've gotten back at our 8:30. We wanted to go to the silk market but it closes at 9, so we had about 40 minutes to spend there and that was nice because we got a good idea of the layout (explanation of silk market in next blog). And highlight! We found a SUBWAY!! Lorenda: "Hey! Look a subway!" Jessica: "Yea.. we have to ride it home.." Lorenda: "No, a subway! Like sandwiches." Oh my gosh i was so stoked. I have been craving a deli sandwich for forever with not wierd china deli meat and mayo and mustard and oh my gosh it was magnificent.

All in all, very VERY good day.

Beijing Welcomes You part 1 of 3

To catch our flight we left wednesday RIGHT after teaching and flew from the guangzhou airport and got into Beijing at around midnite. From there we took a shuttle bus to a stop where our hostel said to go. From there we were just supposed to take a 10 minute taxi to our hostel. For some reason, we cant figure it out, they didnt know where it was or just plain wouldnt take us. Its actually happened a couple times outside of this one time, so its wierd. we have to ask our hostel whats up. So we're trying to decide how to get to our hostel. We passed some hotels on the way to our bus stop and figured that would be our best place to get help. So here's four girls with suitcases walking the deserted streets of Beijing at 2am in the morning (turns out the hotels were quite a bit farther down than we thought...) So we finally get to this really really nice rich hotel and thankfully the guy at the desk was SO helpful!! At that point we just wanted to cry and give him a huge hug for helping us. So they called us a cab and wierdo/stupid driver gets us lost and takes us down these two real sketch alley ways.. FINALLY we find our flipping hostel (mind you its about 3am). So yea... pretty much started Beijing with a little adventure.

Okay full day in beijing:

This was exploration day. We are 5 minutes from Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City. So we headed that way to go check it out. It was a cool sunny day, which was pleasant. So we get to the square and meet two girls who are "art students". We've read/heard/just know that these are really con artists. They tell you they're art students and take you to their exhibition rooms and sell you "originals" for way more than they actually are. But our two girls were way way nice and we got like our own little free personal tour guide around the square. and then of course they took us to their exhibition room and whatnot (only Lorenda was fool enough to buy something) (these girls arent exactly street smart/china smart about some things, they totally the gullibles that these people here look for). Then we parted ways. And we got this cool little map from the Raffles Hotel that helped us the night before and it had everything that we could do and where it was. So then we walked to Tian'anmen Square but we really wanted to know what we were looking at so we figured we go either the next day or the next.

So then we went to somewhere that i knew i had to go to. The olympic stadiums. LA-GIT. All day we travelled by subways. We've pretty much conquered the Beijing Subway system. So we went to the stadiums and its still pretty much under construction so we couldnt get close to it at all. The "Birds Nest" (the main stadium) was HUMONGOUS and SOOO cool looking! For reals it was awesome. And the aquatic center was neat looking too. So that was cool that we got to see those.

Then on our map..we saw.. the Beijing Zoo. haha. We were like um HECK YES WE'RE GOING! We got their at 5:40 and our taxi driver told us that it was closed so we're like dang... but we went and checked times and whatnot but then they let us buy a ticket and go in. All we wanted was to see the pandas. So we booked it in and went straight to the panda house. oh. my. gosh. I am in love with pandas. Seriously, they are every bit as cute as everybody says they are. Oh my goodness they were cute. So we're in the zoo so we figure meh, lets walk around until we get kicked out. I mean we're already inside why not push the limits. A lot of the animals werent out (of course) but we still got to see some foxes and birds and stuff. But def when i come back to Beijing i'm taking a whole day for the zoo, and aquarium thats right next to it. But we were there for sunset and it is a gorgous zoo so i got some good pictures from that. But we were just so excited to see pandas!! in china!!

After that we headed to this bargaining street and spent some time and shopped a bit. We were all exhausted and turns out i'm not a on-your-feet-all-day person. So my feet had been aching from the beginning so i'm just like hey guys i'll just pay for the taxi home (instead of taking the subway) (taxi 15 yuan, subway 2 yuan) but i was tired so i'm like screw it lets just get a taxi. So we talk to like four of them and thats when it happens again, they wouldnt take us. It was the wierdest thing. I mean i could've pointed out where to go but they wouldnt take us. Soooo yea....now Jessica's not in a good mood because now we have to take the subway, which isnt bad my feet just ached and i didnt want to walk and stand and walk and stand. So our route back included 4 stops, 3 of which we had to switch lines, which you have to walk up a bunch of steps to get to it. So pretty much what should've been a 10 minute taxi ride back, took a flipping hour. ugh. it was crap.

But i had an amazing day, so stuff like that dont bring me down none. haha. Wo ai Beijing ♥