Great Wall of Fog (長城） and Ming Dynasty Tombs （明十三陵）

Cable Car to the Great Wall of China.

My Family and I at the North 8th Watchtower.

The Sacred Way to the Ming tombs.

Second Short Day in Beijing

Before I continue, I do realize I had numerous of mistakes on my previous post. Here are reasons why I made such mistakes:
1) I am fobby.
2) I was jet lagged.

3) Ching chong ling long ting tong.

 So, I woke up at 6 A.M to a foggy (or smoggy) Beijing. The first thing I did when I woke up was play China's League of Legends. I'm clearly making the most of my visit here, but I honestly think playing games inside is better than being outside.

Around noon, my cousins wanted to have KFC for lunch. Even though I'm not a big fan of fast food, I took this trip as a learning experience. So, here is several fun facts about China's KFC:
1) It is open 24/7.
2) For a US dollar, you can get congee AND coffee for breakfast.
3) They offer boba milk tea.
4) Chinese people apparently have no concept of a line.
5) Chicken is chicken.


After lunch, my cousins and I had to get change for laundry. The lady at the counter who gave us change called my cousin 帥，which means handsome in English. However, he didn't know what she said. Once I told him what that meant, his ego went through the roof. When he had a pencil and paper, he immediately wrote this sentence: "我很帥。” （I am handsome.) This feeling of his would soon be shot down when we went to my Aunt's nephew birthday dinner.

This was by far the best, filling meal I had thus far. There was a Sichuan dish, Japanese tofu, two steamed fish, 30 pieces of dumplings, bok choy, fried rice, noodle soup, steak, and more. Luckily there was a lot of food because there was a language barrier between me and my aunt's nephew's family. They spoke Thai, and I spoke Mandarin, which is unfortunate because they seemed real nice. Anyways, at one point of the meal, my aunt said to the birthday boy that he was the most handsome boy. My cousin felt some jealousy, and said: "It's only because it's his birthday..." If the birthday boy knew English, I wonder how that would've turned out.

Not much happened today, really. I don't think I'm going to do much tomorrow since it will rain in Beijing apparently. On Sunday, I will go to the Great Wall of China.

Getting to Beijing

26-27 June 2013

My family and I decided to have Vietnamese food, specifically Pho, as my last American meal before I leave to China for about two months (as if I cannot get enough of Asian food when I'm in China). Shortly after dinner, I had to do some last minute packing. By 9 P.M, I was on my way to LAX. Conan, our family's golden doodle, wanted to come along more than my older brother, but they both stayed behind. Before I went to LAX, my family made a stop at 85 Bakery Cafe (more Asian food). I arrived at LAX around 10:30 P.M and was through the security checkpoint by 11:30 P.M. I didn't know what to feel when I got through security. I traveled alone before, but never half way around the world alone.

1 A.M Take-off.

I had to make one stop at Hong Kong before I went to Beijing. The 14 hour flight wasn't too bad. I slept, ate, listened to music, and watched some shows (Friends, The Office, and Game of Thrones). I guess it was what I would normally do on a hot summer's day.

Once I arrived at Hong Kong, I was sweatin' as if I popped a molly or something. The humidity was like no other...Also, I met up with my cousins at the airport and played Big 2 until our next flight.

The second flight was just like the former.

After 18 hours, I was finally in Beijing, and my cousins and I had to take a train to get to the baggage claim. It took about 30 minutes just to get on the train due to train malfunction and over-aggressive Chinese people. Also, people talk a lot about the pollution in Bejing. Looking outside the plane, the pollution was real. Walking outside of Bejing, the pollution was even more real. It was difficult to breathe, but I guess it is comparable to Los Angeles. Traffic and smog every single day.

Our aunt picked us up from the airport and showed us around Peking University. The people and the campus seem nice. After showing us around the campus, we decided to go eat at Hong Kong cuisine restaurant. I can't escape the Asian foooooood!

Eating Chinese food in America and eating Chinese food in China are quite different. The waiters are treated differently, and the food in China is wayyyyyy saltier, surprisingly. I guess I have to give other restaurants a chance. I'm interested what the menu for McDonald's and KFC in China are like. I will take a look some other day since I live just a walk away.

(Note: This is my first blog. Hopefully, I'll get better as the days progress. Maybe I might even do a vlog. We'll see.)