The whole trip to China and back and all that stuff. Finally. X_x.

...And I am FINALLY figuring out I'm not in Beijing anymore. Whew... What. A. Trip.

Literally.

July 9, 6:40 AM MA time (5:40 for Katie, 3:40 for you out in CA), the van came to pick me and Dad up. Drove to Bradley International Airport (Hartford, CT), had McD for breakfast, and hopped on a short flight to Newark, NJ. Slight change of flight times meant we had to rush to a different gate FAST to connect flights, but we made it. I claimed the window seat (on EVERY flight >D), getting OMG views of Canada, the Arctic Circle area, Russia, and Mongolia... then China. Spent EIGHT hours in the Beijing Shoudu Guojie Jichang (Beijing Capital International Airport) waiting for the delayed flight to Hefei... and exchanged $200 for 1643 yuan. Flight to Hefei comes, I try to read as many characters as I can, and we reach Hefei. Rainy. Check-in and SLEEP, as it's nearly July 11 local time... two days mushed into one 36-hour day I called July 9/10. Next bunch of days were in Hefei, eating better meals than America for about three bucks a dish (24 yuan) (up to 15 dishes at certain times... and SOME steamed vegetable dishes only cost one yuan(12.5 CENTS!)) visiting the universities and the dino museum, reuniting with Shen Laoshi and Wang Laoshi from my last two years of Chinese, meeting Mu Laoshi who's coming in the fall... then off to Huangshan.

Huangshan, the Yellow Mountains. NOT Mount Huangshan, that's redundant. I had previously thought of it as a Chinese landscape painting come to life. I was wrong. It's far more beautiful... the day we arrived in Huangshan City, we saw a local acrobatics/dance/opera/music performance about the local Hui culture. They even grabbed a random guy from the audience and faked a wedding ceremony on the stage- he ended up "marrying" the male clown character, whose costume as a Chinese bride completely obscured his face and true gender >D. The mountain itself, I CLIMBED up on a misty, cloudy, drizzly day. AKA perfect weather for the scenery. I'm not kidding... the next day coming down was great views from the cable car, but nothing compared to the wonders of going up the stone path in the mists and clouds. Oh, and there were also MANY people going up and down with the traditional bamboo poles and packages slung over the shoulders. It's the only way the six hotels up there get and get rid of their supplies ^^.

Huangshan City after Huangshan. I thought it was going to be "just head back to Hefei and then to Xi'an", but I was happy to be wrong again. We visited a pavilion where we could see wild monkeys on the slopes who weren't afraid of tourists! One elderly female was about 16 or 17, and there were a few that were three days old! Adorableness! One even came onto the pavilion railing and ate out of our tour guide's hand! We also took a nice leisurely raft ride down the Xin'an river (I think) on a traditional bamboo raft. Utterly peaceful. And then we visited the village of Hongcun, where they filmed "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"! Seeing such a traditional village was great, but then we went to the "Huashan Mysterious Grottoes". #2 and #35. They're enormous manmade caves from a LONG time ago... going 160 meters deep, having removed over 100,000 cubic meters of rock... and that was just #35, the grandest. One area had a misty ceiling and bats, then there was water at various locations... even a pool lit by blue lights so it looked more like black ice! Despite their age, they show an incredible amount of modern engineering in them... columns that flare out, walls left to support the roof that FOLLOWED THE CONTOURS OF THE MOUNTAINS... Wow. Just... wow.

Train ride to Xi'an wasn't too fun, as I got sick... but still was able to visit the Bell and Drum towers in Xi'an before throwing up violently and spending one day in the hospital. Dad even let the bag with ALL MY FLUXING DIABETES STUFF in it get stolen! He noticed it was gone, though, and Head Nurse Lu helped him contact the police... who recovered it about a half-hour later. Amazing. And while the visit was expensive by Chinese standards (500+ yuan), it worked out to about $62.50 US. And that was buying two tests, an IV tube, four bottles of rehydration liquids, and 200 yuan (about 25 bucks) just to cover going to the hospital. AND it was more efficient than American hospitals... then I saw Bingmayong, the Terracotta Army. It wasn't the most spectacular thing, but it IS the Eighth Wonder of the (Ancient or Modern) World. About 30% of Pit #1 is excavated, 5% of Pit #2, and 100% of tiny Pit #3. It was rushed there... I wanted to linger, and maybe fork over a few yuan to get in CLOSE to the soldiers... then we went to the Huaqing Chi (Huaqing Hot Springs), famous for their associatoin with one of the Four Beauties of China, Yang Guifei (Honorable Concubine Yang), who was "plump as a harem queen" according to one guidebook. Apparently, she lived there and the Tang Dynasty Emperor of the time (about 1000 CE) spent all his cash and time on her and let the empire mostly crumble. Naturally, the blame was ALL placed on Yang Guifei. Then it was time to ride a train again to Beijing.

Beijing is a city of contradictions. Parks and pollution. Old and new. High and low. Starbucks in the Forbidden City - no lie. Dad had to go there just because of the culture clash. McDonalds in over 100 places in Beijing ALONE. Renovations while the sites remain open. Capitalism meets Communism and the result is quite the booming economy... and more cranes than I EVER want to see again. The Temple of Heaven was amazing even though the main hall was closed... I saw the place the emperors believed to be the center of the universe. Then it was... um... The Forbidden City! 60 yuan is DIRT CHEAP for such a place, even with 50% of it off-limits! The scale of the main halls is justifiably grand... but get past them, and there's the northern part which has a very intimate feeling to it, as all the concubines and eunuchs lived there. Several of Pu Yi's possessions, some concubine outfits and paraphernalia, bronzes from 3000 years ago, and a few rooms even had their original furnishings, untouched by Jiang Jieshi or the Cultural Revolution... I even bought a little something for Laura that I hope to show her after dinner tonight ^^ Um, um, what was next... Oh, RIGHT... on Wednesday, our driver took us to an acrobatics performance by the Beijing Acrobatics Troupe, who have performed internationally and present a show that doesn't go over the top. I want to know how they got into a few of those positions... half the girls could touch their butts to the back of their heads! Accenting the performances there was music and usually something QUITE breakable... four kids hopping around and playing catch by using ropes to fling two teabowls connected at the bases WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY up there and never missing... a girl on a rotating platform with miniature pagodas of plates and glasses balanced on her palms, soles, forehead, AND mouthpipe... girls balancing on top of other girls by ONE HAND while the girl on bottom is spinning five plates per hand and the one on top has three in her free hand... that was nearly 80 plates being spun at once! I could go on, but this is already of a ridiculous length, so the Great Wall is next. OMG. OMG. OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG. Went to the western end of the restored section, looked down, and saw the ruins of the continuation of the Wall. Went back, saw that the way east was a solid mass of people for at least three guard towers. And it is apparently more crowded in the afternoon... well, the Summer Palace was last. Even Dowager Empress Cixi's marble boat is still there... she built that with the funding for the Chinese Navy. And the Long Corridor is LONG... easily half a kilometer, probably more!

Finally, back on the plane to Newark. Saw the Wizard of Oz (one of MANY channels), then listened to the Broadway Tunes channel on the radio. THAT. WAS. LOVE! Music of the Night, Sucks to be Me, Cell Block Tango, Tropical Heatwave, I Could Have Danced All Night, Lullaby of Broadway... and SO many more... Julie Andrews, Hair, Hairspray, My Fair Lady, The Fantasticks, Wicked, Kiss Me Kate, Lion King, Rent, the overture from The Producers, Barbra Striesand's song that made her famous, one of the first people to break the color barrier on Broadway, Fred Astaire, Jerry Orbach, ALL original cast songs... flight to Hartford delayed two hours due to Cleveland's radar getting busted somehow (REALLY FLUXING RARE EVENT HERE), OUT of energy to the point of tears when talking to Mom on the phone... I was on the floor, crying, talking to her for the first time in three weeks late on Friday. As in about 10 PM late. FINALLY the flight arrives, gets prepped for takeoff in record time, I see the Chrysler Building all lit up as well as the tri-colored Empire State Building... then in Hartford, the Valley Transporter assigned to pick us up ran late. First they said 40 minutes. That ran out, they said 15. THAT ran out, the dispatcher had dispatched himself somewhere else due to crazy flights. 20 minutes later, I tell Dad to call Mom in five. I go outside, and the van MIRACULOUSLY arrives. An hour and ten minutes later, I plop down into bed, having been awake for about 32 hours straight and traveling for 23. The time: 2:15 AM on Saturday, July 9... less than five hours short of three weeks away from home.

I left out a ZILLION details, though... most'll probably find some way out XD;

And I plan to go back sometime. My first trip outside the USA, and I loved it beyond pieces.