This was supposed to be the day of the massage. That didn't work out so well. The guy at our hostel only knew of one place and it was called The Chinese Massage Hospital. Right then, I wasn't too pleased with my options. We got directions and then headed out. After Julia, Katherine, and I walked down a couple of wrong hutongs, we saw their bus and walked through the gate. The place looked kinda like a mental health facility. The signs weren't exactly helpful either. Some guy pointed us in the right direction and the walkway was filled with construction equipment. We made our way to the room and found 8 empty massage tables and nobody in the room. I opened a door and saw some dude passed out on the massage table. One - I'm not waking this mofo up. Two - I don't want that mofo touching me. Three - This wasn't exactly the relaxing setting I was looking for. So we scratched the idea and figured we'd head to the market and see if we can find massages along our way.

Katherine went back and Julia and I set off for the subway. This was the most crowded we've ever seen. We were pretty much face to face. That made conversation rather weird. At the first transfer station, a lot of people got off so it made for a more comfortable ride after that. We ended up getting off a stop too early and had to walk more than needed but it worked out to our advantage. We got hungry and stopped at some place that was selling roasted Peking duck. I wanted to try it while I was here. They served them with these tortilla like things. I think they were the kind of things you make spring rolls with. So we were eating Chinese duck tacos. They were pretty good.

We finally got to market and more madness began. I just bought some gifts for my sisters. I didn't really see anything that I wanted. I did leave with some great quotes from all vendors in China. I'm sure I'm offending anyone who is Chinese but oh well... "Looka looka, t-shirt", "For you, best price", "You want Rolex... USB", "You so beautiful", "That's final price... I lose money". Don't be surprised if you're walking with me and I blurt out "looka looka, t-shirt". That's probably my favorite line from the market. The night ended with group dinner at another fantastic Chinese spot. Jean-Luc was the man when it came to picking restaurants. I guess he should know since he lived here for 2 years. They made me try this nasty liquor called "bai jiu". Bai is white and jiu is alcohol. That shit was nasty. But after a couple of shots of that, it set the tone for a night of boozing. We ended up in the alley at the kabob shack like usual. We ordered several pi jiu (beer). It was international. We had an Englishman, an Aussie, a Finnish girl, a French Canadian, Americans, and some girl from Missouri. I’m just kidding Jill. We stayed out too late and stumbled back to the hostel to pass out immediately.

I don't know why our Great Wall trip had to start off with a 7:30 a.m. departure. I'm on vacation mofos. We all jumped into this mini bus that was waiting down the alley and took off for The Great Wall. It was supposed to be a 2 hour drive but I swear it took longer. We stopped and picked up some guys from England on the way. That took some time. We later dropped them off to another car. Apparently, they were going to hike a different section of the wall. We got there and the incline began. The vendors were hounding like crazy. One lady gave me her card and told me, "Remember Lee in booth 133". She wrote my name down so she could get me on the way back. There's more on that to come.

There are so many damn steps there. I knew that going into it but it's one thing to hear about it and another to actually walk it. We had some small girl that was our tour guide and she said she does 2 to 3 tours a week. I don't know how she makes it through it each week. One of the girls that was with us has an asthma issue and we acted like we were being nice and waiting for her to catch up but we were really resting. Along the walk, I ran into a guy that's near where I'm from in California. Talk about a small world. We took tons of pictures. Instead of walking all the way down, we took a toboggan down. There's some rule where you have to stay 25 meters behind the person in front of you. It was fun to go fast and hit the curves like you're in a bobsled. It was fun until the log jam behind some paranoid chick riding her break all the way down. Talk about a buzz kill. She had about 10 people lined up behind her that wanted to stab her to death. That included her boyfriend.

Now comes the return trip through the vendors. Sure enough, Lee from booth 133 pulls out the card with my name on it and pulls me over. I didn't really want anything there and then I saw a housewarming gift for Marie and Kelly and I started my price bargain. She started off high as hell but I worked her down to a price that I wanted. Then I didn't them anymore. She kept pulling me by my triceps and eventually grabbed my shirt and yanked when I finally tried to walk off. After she lowered her price below my asking price, she pushed me in the back as I walked away. I pissed her off big time. After talking with my group, I realized that I was getting a good price so I walked back and tried to get Lee's low price but it took a little work. I finally got it and she was probably talking smack about me in Chinese cause some people were laughing but I didn't care. She just got manhandled by me in pricewars. Suck on that Lee from booth 133.

Our night was pretty tame after that. Half of the group went to bed soon after we returned and had a snack. A couple of us cabbed it to some other part of town to try out some Thai place. The food was really good. I might have to try some Thai places when I get back to the states. I finally bought some long sleeve shirt since I had been freezing the past couple of nights. I only packed shorts and short sleeve t-shirts since I expected warm weather. I'm pretty sure it was dirty when I bought it but it does the trick. I only needed it for tonight and tomorrow night. I have one more night here and then I come back on Sunday. I think tomorrow will consist of massages and more shopping. My body could use that. No happy endings, TJ.

Day 5 Pics

The Tian'anmen Square wasn't that exciting. We did manage to make it through without running into rabid protesters. It seems like everywhere you go, there is someone trying to sell you something. Every 10 steps we took, someone asked if I wanted some crappy Rolex imitation. The ones at the Pearl Market did a better job of hiding the fact that the second clock wasn't continuous. They also tried selling us watches with Mao Zedong waving his hand all the time. I think both of the Julias bought one.

After the girls ditched me in Tian'anmen Square, I met up with them at The Forbidden City. I was told that it was once off limits to Westerners. We showed them. I should've pissed in a corner while wearing an American flag T-shirt. The "lets take a picture with an American" was in overdrive today. Little did they know, we were rolling with 3 girls from Canada and another from Finland. The joke's on you. I got kinda tired of The Forbidden City pretty quick. The highlight was getting ice cream. The Imperial Gardens were the best part of the city. The last thing on the information board said that that's where the emperor picked his harems. What a pimp.

After a lot of walking and a bus ride back to the hostel, we still had 3 hours to kill before we met up for dinner. I needed some kind of towel to wipe off all the sweat that will gather on tomorrow's trip to The Great Wall so I headed to Wu Mart. It's the not same as Wal Mart. It's just like a mall. That place was huge. There were 5 floors full of people playing "stare at the foreigner". It wasn't as bad as I'm describing it. I did buy a shirt from some girl that was dead set on me understanding Chinese after I made it clear I didn't know what heck she was saying. That place was kinda funky. You pick out your items and then they give you a receipt. You take the receipt to some cashier on that floor and pay them. When you finish that, take the paid receipt back to the shop and then you'll get your item(s) all bagged up and you can be on your way.

We had a group dinner again. This time, some chick decided to sleep and be anti-social. We hit up some place where you cook your own food at your table. We had some sesame beef, some kind of pork, some veggie pancake stuff, some seafood pancake stuff, and marinated dog. That's right. I ate some fido. It’s okay… they breed dogs for cooking. They don’t steal neighborhood dogs. It was in the style of pulled pork. It was spicy and pretty good. We cabbed it to a night market after that to eat more weird stuff. I had scorpion, beetle, and a seahorse. The scorpion was the best tasting dish. I won't be heartbroken if I never have to visit or smell the night market again.

Day 4 Pics

Nap time was definitely in order after the subway ride home. Jean-Luc and Mark wanted to meet us for dinner so I couldn't get that quality college nap we were hoping for. Jean-Luc took us to this place where the menu was in Chinese and the only English in there was the exit sign. He ordered for us and the food just kept coming. We didn't even finish it all. We had dumplings, some sweet pork things, fried rice, steamed rice, sweet and sour chicken, a kung pao type chicken dish, mushroom something, and some vegetable thing that I don't know. For 10 people, the total was 201 yuan. Oh yeah, we had some beer, soda, and water too. So the total came to about $3 in US currency. I'm gonna feel ripped off when I come back to the states and have to pay American prices.

Day 3 Pics

Now that I'm settled, I get to have a full day of the Chinese culture. Julia thought it would be a good idea to hit up the Summer Palace first. It wasn't that far of a bus ride and it was one of the tourist places that I wanted to go to. I don't know the exact story but I think that some Dowager Empress misappropriated funds that she claimed were for the Navy and she built some huge palace for her to chill at in the summer since the heat was a big issue in Beijing at that time. You see a lot of signs about Anglo-French allied forces burning down the original buildings. That place was huge. My legs got a good workout. After all those stairs, I felt like I had buns of steel. I was sweating like a mad man. I think I'm gonna buy a little towel today to carry around.

Some couple came up to Julia and me and wanted a picture with us. I wonder what they were saying. "Let’s get a picture with those goofy Americans." "I think I saw that black guy in a movie." "This will make a good MySpace picture." I guess we'll never know. When we got down to Souzou Street, we got bombarded with all kinds of vendor requests/demands. It's funny how they call you beautiful when they want you to dress up in their stuff and pay for a picture. These two ladies draped me in some emperor’s outfit and would not let me walk away. I practically had to push them out of the way and then they started to take that outfit off of me. They were very aggressive.

After we left the Summer Palace, we decided to wind down at the hostel by playing some piggy game and various card games. That's when the guys from Julia's project showed up. Mark and Jean-Luc walked in with 5 or 6 other girls. They're all part of the archaeology work that Jean-Luc is doing for his PhD. Those guys were cool. The beer started flowing pretty heavily after they showed up. After the girls got settled, we met up with Mark and Jean-Luc in the alley for kabobs and beer. I found out that we were eating sheep. It tastes good to me. They call it mutton. I think we went through 27 bottles of beer (600 ml each). I'll let you do the math. And not everyone was drinking. That was a good night.

I also had the pleasure or walking into a public restroom while some guy was dropping a deuce in the squatter toilet. If you don't know what that is, just imagine a whole in the ground. That's pretty much it. They did have little foot spots so you don't slip while you're handling your business. I wonder how the guy felt with me pissing a couple of feet from his head. Once again, I guess we'll never know.

Day 2 Pics

The day started off pretty smooth. Marie and Kelly got me to the airport on time. Thanks girls. The flight from Chicago to San Francisco went by pretty quick. They played some movie that I couldn't even hear. Oh well. I did manage to catch up on some much needed sleep. When I got to San Francisco, I had to figure out something to do with my 3.5 hour layover. Oh yeah, I also needed a boarding pass for my next flight. Apparently United Airlines couldn't give me a boarding pass for my connecting Air China flight even though they were the ones working the damn thing. Since nobody was at the Air China counter, I decided to do some window shopping and get something to eat. I hit up a Mexican restaurant and watched some baseball and basketball.
 
After a while, I figured I'd better get down to the Air China counter so I could have enough time to get my ticket. I'm glad I did. I got up there and these ladies couldn't find my ticket. They kept asking me all sorts of questions. I must've handed them my passport about 7 times. They had to call in a manager to straighten things out and even she couldn't do it right away. This manager was on two cell phones and made trips in and out. I was like "WTF mate?" and finally, they called me up to get my boarding pass. It took 3 employees, 1 manager, and 45 minutes for them to print one boarding pass.
 
My flight was seriously the quickest 12 hours I've sat through. They served us two meals and zero A/C. That plane was too damn hot. For that long of a flight, one would think that they would show more than 2 movies. I guess I was wrong. I did manage to finish a book that my stepmom let me borrow around the Christmas of 2006. Sorry Angela. It was actually a really good book. I just never read any of it unless I was flying or in an airport. I bet she'll be surprised when she gets it in the mail next week. The flight was good with the exception of someone farting every 3 minutes when we first got on the plane. I don’t know who was doing it but as soon as the smell went away, here came another gust of stank. I'm glad it wasn't the entire way. He or she did start up again when we got close to landing. Maybe it was their way of getting rid of the nerves.
 
After I got out of the HUGE airport, Julia and I cabbed it back to the hostel. They cab ride was pretty cheap. Everything here seems to be cheap. We had dinner in some alley near our place and it was about $6 in US currency. We ate 15 kabobs and had 2 big beers. I don't know what meat we were eating but they seasoned those mofos like a champ. I'm pretty sure we'll be eating there a lot. The guys that work with Julia are coming today and they eat/drink there every night when they come to Beijing. So far so good.

Day 1 pics