New Blog!

Hey everyone!

This is going to be the last blog change! I made a blog to stay 🙂 This blog will follow all my adventures at home and abroad!

thealexisadventures.wordpress.com

Vacationing around China

This is what you’ve all been waiting for! I’ve taken ages it seems to write this. I’m so sorry it’s taken this long. I’ve been visiting family and friends, going all over New England and working. But the wait is over!

Let’s go back to August 10th the day my mom arrived! I woke up at 5am, and let’s be real I really didn’t sleep because I was too excited. I met the car taking me to the airport to pick up my mom which was kindly arranged by my work, they got reallllllly nice and surprised me. We waited at the exit for my mom and she finally came through and I got a big smile on my face and waved and wouldn’t you know it being the only white girl with semi-blonde hair in a sea of Chinese people, she didn’t see me. I started towards her and she finally saw me she gave me a big hug and started to cry a little bit! We made our way back to my apartment in the hired car and I made her breakfast, a big American breakfast with eggs, bacon, yogurt, coffee, potatoes, and oatmeal! The rest of the day we walked around my neighborhood, she met some of my friends and we went to dinner with people from my work! There were supposed to be more people there but they couldn’t make it for whatever reason. Oh well. Jessica and Neal are great so my mom, Jared and I didn’t mind. We had a great dinner with no weird food besides the inside of bamboo which looked like a wet sock and had quite an interesting texture.

August 11th: We packed, cleaned and moved out of my apartment. It ended up being an ordeal. The Chinese have to make it so hard sometimes. I apparently never paid my water bill but in my defense I thought it was this other bill that I was paying. It wasn’t a big deal and it wasn’t a lot of money but it took like 4 hours to settle that and the little bit I owed for the 10 days of August. We went to our hotel near the airport called the Days Inn. Let me tell you, it is a 5 star hotel. We walked a little ways to get there in the rain and the back of my legs were covered in mud. We walk into the hotel and the maĂ®tre d’hĂ´tel brought me wet wipes wearing his white gloves. We get into the room and the tub is so big it could fit like 3 people! I almost cried. Y’all know how my bathroom was, this was like a dream come true. The beds were like heaven too. It was amazing! It’s definitely is the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed in.

August 12: We flew to Beijing and met up with Jenny! We went to Tiananmen Square, The Forbidden City and to an Acrobatic show.

August 13th: It’s time to see the Great Wall. We all get up early and meet up with Eric and his friend Stephen. We take a bus to the middle of nowhere where we had to hire a guy to take us the rest of the way to Mutianyu which is a little farther away from Beijing but definitely worth the trip. There weren’t that many people and it was beautiful! We met another American along the way and he was really cool. We even had lunch at Subway and some Baskin Robins… go figure. Fun facts about the Great Wall: You can see it from space, it is a little over 13,000 miles long, the stairs on the Great Wall are scary- some are short, some are tall, some dip in the middle and some of them are missing! That night we board a train to Xi’an.

August 14th: We arrive in Xi’an pretty early. We go to McDonald’s and get some coffee. Then we try to get a taxi but no one will take us. Seriously we walked around the block and no one would stop and pick us up. We were standing on a corner wondering what we should do and this guy came up and asked where we were going. I showed him the address and he said he’d take us for 30rmb which hey isn’t that bad it’s 5$ and I have no idea where our hotel is. So he takes us and then we try to communicate in Chinese with my limited Chinese skills. He wanted to know where were going to go that day. It took a while and the help of a translator to figure out that he was asking us if we wanted to go see the Terracotta Warriors. He told me he’d charge us a certain price and we said ok hell ya we get a private car for the day. Well, he kept talking to me and translating things on his phone and being a little creepy. We saw the Terracotta Warriors and walked around for a few hours. It really is amazing how many of them there are and sad it is that they are so faded and broken. My mom was in heaven. She loves those kinds of things. I thought it was a little boring honestly. You can’t anywhere near them and they are all in ginormous pits that are about 25 feet or more down below you. On the way back things got really weird. This guy was a little older and was asking me if I had a boyfriend and asked me about the claddagh ring I wear. He then stopped and bought me pomegranates and touched my leg. He then pulls out his phone and translates something into “We go tonight” I was like umm yeaaaa nooooo! I have plans with friends. He got mad and called someone and talked about me and then charged us double when he dropped us off. It wasn’t a lot of money really and I couldn’t wait to get away from this weirdo.

August 15: We walked around the city and then caught our plane to Chengdu in the afternoon. That night we just ate dinner at the hotel and walked around a little bit.

August 16th: We got up early and went to the Leshan Buddha. It ended up being a 3.5 hour bus ride and then when we got there the lines were ridiculous! I’m not kidding we waited in line for like 3 hours just to get to the bottom of the Buddha. It almost was anti-climatic since we waited so long and people were so rude pushing and shoving even down the stairs. The Buddha really is incredible though. It is the largest sitting Buddha in the world. We were going to go to the Sichuan Opera but the ride back took forever and we got back too late but we did have a nice dinner of fried rice and veggies!

August 17th: PANDA DAY! We got up super early and got to the Panda Research center by 7am. They opened at 7:30am and we got walk around basically by ourselves and see the pandas. They are so darn cute and they eat so loud you can hear from a mile away! At around 10am we went to the place where you make the donations to get to hold a panda. So my birthday present from my mom was getting to hold a panda! BEST. PRESENT. EVER. SERIOUSLY! It was 200$ and I had to wear gloves and a gown. I’m not exactly sure why, to protect the panda or me? Probably the panda… they are a national treasure. So they bring out this baby panda and start feeding him honey covered bamboo. I waited my turn and then I got to sit next to him and pet him and hug him. AHHH it was so cool. They are not actually that soft, I could feel his coarse hair through my gloves. After that we went to the hotel and grabbed our stuff and headed to the train station. I hadn’t bought tickets because there are 20 trains a day from Chengdu to Chongqing. Well, on that day ever single train and seat was sold out. How I have no idea. We ended up on a bus from Chengdu to Chongqing that took 7 hours. I couldn’t wait to be off the bus. They played back Chinese sitcoms the whole time so near the end I busted out some Florida Georgia Line naturally. Every Chinese person turned to look at us and guess what… yea there were no effs given.We were going to see them in a few weeks and they are my favorite band right now! We finally made it and went to our hotel near the airport. The 5 star Days Inn. Thank God. We didn’t want to leave!

August 18th: We contemplated whether or not we wanted to go to Guilin. We were tired by this point and we had some things we wanted to do in Chongqing. We ended up going and as it turns out we got there too late in the day to go on the river cruises which is the only reason we went there. So we walked around and it was really hot. It wasn’t that cool of a place, there was nothing there.

August 19th: We wake up to a Typhoon, literally. There was typhoon while we were there, so we couldn’t go anywhere and we had to go shopping for me because I didn’t have a coat! I ended up buying this really nice jean jacket from Only. It has this cool black and white Aztec pattern on the shoulders. Then we headed out to the airport and went to Jared’s apartment to have dumplings! Jenny and Jared were waiting for us. The dumplings were amazing and Jenny and I actually made them with the help of one of my students April. They helped us bring our stuff to the hotel down the block. It was FREEZING in that hotel! holy cow! I tried to get rid of some more stuff because we had too much stuff to bring back.

August 20th: We packed and went to lunch with my boss the dragon lady or Miss Yuan and Miss Liu who is really cool! We went to a really nice restaurant where we had excellent food. We even got to try on some traditional dress. Jared and I matched and we looked gooood! Then we brought our stuff to the Days Inn and went to the bank to convert the last of my money. Then we went to dinner with my students and friends. There were 17 of us and we ordered 24 dishes. I don’t even think we touched them all. It was a good dinner. It was sad to say goodbye to everyone, especially Jared. Jared my closest friend in China and he will forever be my China Husband! One of my students Jerry even started tearing up. It was sad. Jenny came back to the hotel with us and got to use that lovely tub we had and we gave her some stuff. Then sadly it was time to say goodbye to her too. She is like my sister. I love her!

August 21st: We boarded the plane to Helsinki and off we went. We got to the hotel in Helsinki and made our way into the city to have a look around. It was cold there too! Seriously it was summer it should be hot not cold.

August 22nd: Our last day of traveling and we flew from Helsinki to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Toronto which my mom almost didn’t make it on. She checked in at the Helsinki airport but she couldn’t check into the other flights so she had to check in when we got there. And then we weren’t placed together obviously. It was a nightmare, but thankfully she got on the flight and we just asked the lady next to me to switch and she was like an aisle seat hell yeah! Once we landed in Toronoto we had to wait to go through U.S. customs and finally made it onto the smallest plane I’ve ever flown on (and I fly a lot) to Syracuse. It was literally one seat on each side of the plane, no flight attendants and I could see into the cockpit from the back of the plane which was only 9 rows. WE MADE IT BACK TO AMERICA!!! It’s 12am and we drove home! Our kitty was so happy to see us.

That is the China trip. Pictures are worth a thousand words so I’ll post a gallery of them next. It was an overall good trip but we did run into a lot problems with people being rude and not wanting to pick us up in taxi’s. If you ever think about going to China… learn some Chinese or you’ll get no where, and go with a tour group and save yourself the stress and problems of going it alone. And go to see the nature places. They are so much better than the big cities. You have to see the Great Wall while in China and maybe the Terracotta Warriors. Then I would recommend Zhangjiajie, Jiuzhaugou, Giulin (down the river and the rice terraces), Wulong, etc. China has some of the best scenic areas in the world. I would love to go back and see Juizhaigou, Guilin, and Wulong. Hopefully one day!

I’m done, I’m done

Yesterday was my last day of work and it was absolutely amazing to have no students and to never have to go back there. Unfortunately, they didn’t pay me yet and I’m pissed about that. I’m supposed to get paid on the 7th of every month and a few weeks ago I went to them and made sure they would pay me for July, 6 days in August and the money for my flight. As always they screwed stuff up and didn’t have the right amount and they didn’t have the money ready for me. I was told I should get paid today or Monday. We’ll see if that happens, if not they will have one very UNHAPPY American coming in and they’ll wish they paid me already. Enough about the awful place though.

My mom made it safely to Helsinki where she will catch a direct overnight flight here. She’s had no problems that I know of so that’s great!  Tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn (no pun intended haha my mom’s name is Dawn)  I will be getting up to go to the airport to pick her up! I AM SO EXCITED! It’s been over 6 months since I’ve seen her. My company surprisingly has hired a car to bring me to the airport and pick my mom up AND they are taking us to dinner tomorrow night with my boss the dragon lady and few other people from work. I was actually shocked at this. They never do anything nice like that for us. It wasn’t my departments idea come to find out, it was actually the department that works with CIEE to bring Americans to Chongqing. That made sense because they are all super nice over there.

 I’ve been busy every day and every night for the last 2 plus weeks. I’ve been seeing all my friends and doing things to get ready to leave.I actually have a very busy schedule for the rest of time I’m in China. The whole time my mom is here is planned out basically.  There is just so much to do.  Today is my only rest day. I’m not really doing anything. Jared and I are gonna do a Harry Potter Marathon. (fun fact: I never saw or read Harry Potter until last week when Jared and I watched the 1st and 2nd movies) Then I have some food to make, so I’ll make Jared dinner. He’ll probably want to join the amazing breakfast that I have planned for tomorrow morning too. I’m going all out with eggs, bacon, french toast, coffee, oatmeal and English muffins with cream cheese.  Yummm. I want to give my mom a good breakfast and ease her into Chinese food. I mean they eat everything spicy and even eat spicy noodles for breakfast for heavens sake, that’s not normal for the rest of us. My mom doesn’t even like spicy food, while I’ve come to love it, so it should be interesting. I’m not only excited for her to get here, but to also get to travel around China. It’s going to be a GREAT trip!

Well, it looks like this is my last post for a while  🙂

ta ta for now everyone

The End is Near

I have exactly 5 days left of work. My mom will be here in 9 days. We leave to travel around China in 11 days. And I will be home in 21 days. How have 6 months gone by so fast? What happened to all that time I have in China? Or that snowy day in February when my passport was late and there was a giant snow storm on the East Coast causing me to miss my flight? Or that time a less than 2 hour flight lasted over 7 hours and I missed my flight to China? Or the day I turned 23 with so much time left in China. I only have 20 days left in China. I can’t believe it.

On one hand I am completely excited to come home and see all my friends and family. I get to see my mom in 9 days and I am beyond excited. I haven’t seen her in over 6 months and that is the longest I have gone without seeing her. Our trip is going to be amazing. We really are going to some of the best places in China. I have a lot of plans for when I get back too. I have a coming home party, the usual doctor’s appointments and a hair appointment to give that blonde hair a touch up, tickets to a Florida Georgia Line Concert and the State Fair, a trip to the Rhode Island, a Labor Day party to go to and on top of all of that I have to plan my adventure in Spain. If that even happens, because the process is so complicated and I haven’t even found out where I’m going yet.

On the other hand I am sad to go. I will miss all the friends I’ve made and the life I’ve created here. I will miss Jared more than anyone else in China. Why you might ask? Well you might be thinking that Jared and I are dating like everyone in our office, but no Jared and I are not dating. Jared is my best friend here in China. We know each other better than anyone else. We spend a lot of time together mostly because of work, since we work together, but we also have the same friends and sometimes have movie nights or get dinner together because we also live in the same building. He’s the one I talk to the most and the person I tell everything to. We’ve endured all the craziness of work and China together. So I will miss him a lot. I know that we will stay in touch and see each other again.

Moving is bittersweet. When you move abroad there is the excitement of going to a new place and starting a new life. You’ll miss your friends and family but you can stay in touch. You’ll learn another language and your native language will get worse. You’ll make new friends so fast, it’ll seem like you’ve known each other forever. You’ll get used to the food and the culture and anything that seemed weird or gross or different will just be normal everyday life. This new place becomes your home and even if you miss home, you can’t imagine being anywhere else.

When you move home there is also the excitement of seeing all your friends and family. You’ll get to have everything you’ve missed like mom’s home cooking or Dunkin Donuts. But there is the sadness that comes from leaving the friends you’ve made and the life you’ve created. Not to mention that most of us have no idea what to do when we get home. I put my life on hold and now I’m back to wondering what to do with my life.

I am excited, sad, anxious, and nervous all at the same time. I’ve had an amazing time here in China. I’ve gone to Hong Kong, Zhangjiajie or the Avatar Mountains, Langzhong, an ancient city and I’m going to Beijing, Xi’an, Chengdu, and Guilin. China is must bigger than you think. So that’s actually pretty good for someone who was only here for 6 months and had no vacation time. I really like living in China and I really like the spicy food. Everything is so cheap here too. I’m ready to go home though. I’ve enjoyed my time in China, but I’m ready to spend time with my family and friends, to get Dunkin Donuts and to be home again. I don’t know what is coming my way but I hope only good things are in my future.

Summer Sun

We’ve had a solid week of good weather. It has definitely been hot and it even got up to 104 degrees the other day, but the sun has been shining and I’ve been loving it. It has made me feel happy and I’ve tried to spend some time outside. Not only do I want some sort of tan, I just want to be outside and feel the sun. I love the sun and even when it’s 100 degrees, I hate  to go inside or in the shade. I guess 6 months without sun really does something to a person.

Saturday Jared, Kristin and I set out to explore a new part of the city and be outside. We didn’t actually get all that far away from where we live but it was a nice day nonetheless. We had lunch and walked around the flower park and the little amusement park attached to it that was basically run down and broken, but for whatever reason had one “ride” open. It was a playhouse where the kids could shoot at each  with foam balls. It was pretty hot that day but we kept wandering and we happened upon an art center where we looked at some really nice paintings.

Sunday I went over to the neighborhood Yonghui and got a few things I needed. On my way there I soaked up the sun and when I arrived I decided to sit outside in the sun on a bench for a little while before going in. It was a beautiful day. It was sunny, warm and breezy. It did get a little hot but soaking up all that sun and vitamin D just warmed my soul. We haven’t had many days of sun here in Chongqing. When it is sunny, the clouds and smog usually cover it up. The month of June was a month of just rain and so July has been nice. (it’s still not the beach but hey gotta take what you can get)

Not only do I love the sun but I got sick last week and I figured some time outside and the sun could do me some good. I had a sore throat that went away after a few days. That turned into a cough and some congestion of course. It’s a summer cold, which is so weird to me, but hey going in and out o hot weather and the cold AC has to do something to your body if you go from one extreme to another. Anyway, I’m pretty much over that thank God.

P.S. only 4 weeks till I’m back in the U.S.A 🙂

Food of Chongqing

4th of July

July-4thThe 4th of July has been a hard holiday to miss. You might not think about it being that important of a holiday, but when you think about it,  there are only 2 holidays that are specifically American holidays where we celebrate our country and we we came from. The first being 4th of July and the second being Thanksgiving. I missed Thanksgiving when I studied abroad in Spain and it was really hard to miss that holiday but CIEE Alicante had a Thanksgiving Dinner for us and that totally made it feel like Thanksgiving. I’ve never not been home for the 4th of July before. And there isn’t much you can do to celebrate the 4th if you aren’t in America.

Normally, my mom and I have a cookout. Sometimes my aunt and cousins are there too. We grill hamburgers and hot dogs, make potato salad, have watermelon, lemonade, and of course we always watch fireworks. Fireworks are my moms favorite part, so we’ve been to see most of the ones in the area from Clinton to Sylvan Beach to Old Forge. I love fireworks too actually. You only get to see fireworks once a year, maybe twice if you are lucky. So fireworks are special.

Here in China we had to work on Friday July 4th. It was a normal day. On Saturday all my friends and I got together in Hongyadong. We ate Subway for lunch, sat around at a cafe on the river, talked and played Uno. Then we went to the Chinese market below us and got to explore an old part of town. It was a pretty good day actually. It was nice for all of us to get together and spend time celebrating in our own way.

It was sad hearing about everyone’s Fourth but whatcha gonna do? I’m in China for another 6 weeks and even though it was sad and I miss everyone, I’m not going to waste my time here sulking and being sad or depressed. That’s not me and I’d miss out on life. I hope y’all had a great 4th of July and that you appreciate what it means to be American and how important appreciating that is. Not everyone is as lucky as us and you would not have the things you do if it wasn’t for our ancestors.

Here’s what I showed my class because I now know that Disney has the best fireworks and I want to go watch them one day before I die.

Chongqing Summer

Summer weather in Chongqing is ridiculous. It’s hot and it’s humid. It hasn’t even been a “true” or “real” 7-Infrared-SaunaChongqing summer yet. It gets up to 40C or about 120F ewww! The month of June was pretty unusual for Chongqing. There were 24 days of rain and the highest temperature was maybe 89 degree Fahrenheit or 32 degrees Celsius. It was pretty humid throughout the month but the rain made it feel like a warm New York summer but with rain. Then July comes around and bam the sun starts shining. I shouldn’t complain because I’ve only actually seen the sun maybe 7 days total since being here, but damn it’s hot up in here.

temperature_2334980bThis week it has hit 96F and 98F or 35.5C and 36.6C. And besides that it has not only been sunny, it has been humid. The walk to and from work has been like hell. It feels like you’ve been lying on the beach all day in the hot sun, but you’ve only just stepped outside. And exercising? Pleaseeeee, it’s like being in a tropical jungle with you’re whole body drenched in sweat. Even after finishing you’re workout, you’re still sweating until you can reach your shower and turn that cold water on.

And of course, AC has become my best friend. I never turn that thing off. Well ok, to save money on electricity I turn it off when I go to work but THAT’S IT!!!! I live for AC now because really who can stand being outside unless absolutely necessary? No one, even the Chinese avoid the sun and heat like the plague. They have an unfair advantage of having grown up in this weather and of not sweating like us foreigners.

Chongqing is actually called one of the Furnace Cities in China because it get’s so hot. Unfortunately, we haven’t reached those peak temperatures yet. I hope to God we don’t, but well this is China and you know after our month of rain, it’s going to come back with a vengeance.

Note to self (and everyone) Don’t come to China in the summer!! It’s not only expensive to travel but it’s HOT as hell.

 

 

 

 

Jared sums it up pretty well. So go take a look!

 

Zhangjiajie- The Avatar Mountains:

After work on Thursday Jared and I went home to finish packing, make sandwiches, eat dinner, and make our way to the train station. Our train left at 7:21 and went from Chongqing to Huaihua. We would arrive in Huaihua at 4:30am and then catch our train to Zhangjiajie at 5:30. At least that’s what we thought. The first train from Chongqing to Huaiahua left 10 mins behind schedule. The train ride was rather smooth and the trains were not bad at all. Our students had said they could be really bad but actually they were quite comfortable. There were maybe 30ish beds per train car. Each train car is divided into 5 or 6 sections and in each section are 6 beds. 3 beds lined each wall: 0157a876f44c12cda0ae4c575b170d21d460c2af951 bed near the floor, 1 above that in the middle, and 1 closer to the ceiling of the train. We had the middle beds.  There were little kids under us that were demon children. Within 20 mins of boarding the train, 2 train attendants asked to take a picture with me. They were women so I was a little confused because they normally want to take a picture with Jared but hey that’s better for me haha

We arrived in Huaihua over an hour late. So we thought we missed our train to Zhangjiajie. We arrived in Huaihua to find out our next train was delayed 2 hours. We waited and it became 3 hours and then there was no time at all. We had to exchange our tickets for a train that left at 9:13 which was the time we were supposed to arrive at Zhangjiajie, now we wouldn’t arrive until 12:34pm on Friday June 27th.

So we arrived in Zhangjiajie and weren’t exactly sure how to get to the park. We ended up taking a taxi and this guy tried to get us a tour guide. The tour guide guy was hardcore trying to sell us a tour, but it was expensive and I can navigate myself. He tried telling us that they don’t speak Mandarin because the people in the park are all minorities. Then he said that they hate Americans and that without a guide you would get lost and never find your way around. Well, let me tell you that was all BS. We navigated, found our way and talked to people in Mandarin just fine.

When we got to the park, we bought maps that had all the trails on it and we just followed that. It was pretty easy actually. The first thing we saw when we stepped into the park was MONKEYSSSS. Lots of them! I actually took more pictures of monkeys than the mountains right in front of me. I mean come on, monkeys or mountains? Def monkeys every time.

Anyway once we got past the monkeys, we saw how beautiful the park is. There were trees, a river, the mountains above us, grass and it was nice to be in nature. It was like being in a forest with a tropical rainforest jungle feel. It was hot and humid but thankfully that first day wasn’t that hot at all and it was cloudy. I haven’t seen that many plants and animals since I arrived in China.

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The first hour or so was a pretty nice hike because it was mostly flat with some incline going up, but the second and third hours were tough. I’m not the most active person but I do go to yoga and I run on the treadmill at the gym and I walk A LOT. The hike during those 2 hours was just stairs going up and around the mountain. It was a very tiring and sweaty hike. I think I sweated off 5 pounds doing that hike, but when we finally got to a platform to look out over the mountains I forgot all about that torturous hike and was in complete awe. The mountain makes you work for it but it was so worth it the moment my eyes saw the view.

It is the most incredible place I’ve ever been. I’ve travelled a lot but I mostly saw cities. The only place that was even close to Zhangjiajie was Slovenia’s Lake Bled and Lake Bohinj but they were picturesque and gorgeous whereas Zhangjiajie is magnificent and awe-inspiring. Zhangjiajie is so amazing that I don’t know how anyone can even question whether there is a God or not. I know there is a scientific explanation for  how Zhangjiajie was created and there were several signs explaining that there, but I personally don’t think that anything that marvelous and astounding came to be all by itself.

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Once we finished the rest of the hike up to our hostel, showered and ate some dinner because we were starving, we went down the path next to the hostel and looked out over the mountains while enjoying a nice cold Tsingtao beer. The next day we walked to the bus stop and took the bus to the other side of the park. On the way to the bus stop we saw rice fields and people going to work in the fields. While we were on the bus we saw some great views of the mountains. The roads were really windy and the bus driver was driving way faster than he should. It was kind of scary. Chinese drivers already aren’t the safest drivers but those bus drivers take the cake for worst driving, although we didn’t die or get into an accident so I guess I can’t complain.

The other side of the park was even better than the side we hiked up. There were dozens of platforms to look at the mountains and even though they were all similar they weren’t all exactly the same. While going down to one of the lookouts I got cornered taking pictures with random Chinese people. I was just minding my own business taking a picture of the mountains and then the next thing I know I have a line of people wanting to take a picture with me. Seriously. No joke. Being foreigners we always get asked to take photos with random people but Zhangjiajie has the record so far. I personally had like 15 people take a picture with me or of me within 10 mins and together Jared and I took at least 5 more pictures with people.

We tried to take the cable car down the mountain but it was broken L and we had to hike down. It wasn’t that bad because we were going down and we did get to see more nature and more views of the mountains for the first half of the way down. The second half was pretty boring actually because there wasn’t anything cool or interesting to look at and it was just stairs down. Towards the end there were some rivers and mini waterfalls which were pretty. And we saw a creature we never saw or heard of before… it was like a bug but it was white and walked around like a peacock with his feathers on full display the only thing was this thing was about the size of the nail on my pinky. We made it to the bottom, hopped on the bus to the exit, and then walked to the bus station to catch a bus to the train station. Once back we went to McDonald’s for some much needed lunch and to chill out for a while before our train. Once we got on the train it was smooth sailing till we arrived back in Chongqing Sunday June 29th at 6:45am.

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