Julia's China Blog: October 2010

September 16 - 30

The tail end of September was mostly traveling. What a refreshing change.

The 19th to the 23rd I went to Beijing for the Mid Autumn Festival; this is like our Thanksgiving day; it's a holiday meant to be shared with family. I was supposed to go with some girls from work but they had to cancel last minute; luckily for me Jing decided he wanted to go with me so my trip wasn't wasted. The day we took off from Wenzhou there was a typhoon so our plane sat for about an hour while we waited for the proper time to take off. When we arrived in Beijing we dropped our bags off at the hotel and met up with some friends for dinner. I tried a traditional Beijing noodle dish…. It was gross. Cold noodles with cucumber sliced on top of it and a brown salty sauce you added to the noodles; blech! The fish and the BBQ lamb were delicious though. First thing the next day we went to the Forbidden City. We walked around for 4 hours and still didn't cover much of it; I'm hoping to go back again to see it. That evening we met up with other friends to eat dinner and go to a pub; that particular dinner was the best of the whole trip. We had steamed veggies, a Beijing style shrimp, a beef soup, fried rice, a yummy salad, and there was one other thing, but I can't remember what it was; it was some kind of meat… anyway. The next day was dedicated to the great wall….this section of the wall was PACKED with tourists; it was very steep in some sections and had little escape exits along the inside of the wall. As far as the wall goes it's very big, way different to see in person than in pictures and I think, is definitely worth a stop. I was tired by the time we hiked a while and was scared to walk back; luckily for us though we found a roller coaster type thing that will take you back down the wall…right into the tourist souvenir stands. It was a great day that ended at a famous Peking duck restaurant. I take back what I said before about the food before being the best; this restaurant was by far the best food…as it should have been with it's prices ha ha ha. Our last day we did a bit of shopping before heading back to Wenzhou. It was a great trip and I hope I get to go back soon.

The next travel was to Hong Kong to have my visa extended. I left on the 29th via plane, which was a relief because originally they wanted to drive to Shen Zhen; which is a really long drive. Either way; we got there in one piece and I found out it was Effie's first flight so I was excited for her. It took two nights for my visa to come through but unfortunately I am on a tourist visa for now. I will have to go back to Hong Kong in a month to do this all over again. It's really not so terrible though; it means I get another small vacation in a month. I didn't do too much there as it was mostly a business trip but I did buy some clothes and delicious snacks; they're like mini beef jerky. I got back into Wenzhou on the 1st of October completely exhausted.