I hate squat toilets... (Part 2)

Location: Outside Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Time: 11:33 AM
Date: July 1st

Happy July! I have officially been out of the country for a whole month! That seems crazy to even think about. 1/12 of the year has been spent in a whole nother continent. Well, continuing on with my adventures in China.

Day 3
The first thing we did was visit this military museum thing... except it wasn't anything big. We just talked about the building and looked at some pictures. Then they took us into a room and try to sold us stuff..... except it didn't have anything to do with the military. It was statues of this creature that's supposed to bring good luck and stuff. My mom ended up getting one small statue for like a thousand dollars. Wtf!!! But then she also got me a necklace, but it wasn't that expensive.

After that, we went to this park and saw the stadium where the olympics took place! The stadium was pretty amazing architectually and it's called the Bird's Nest. If you've never seen it, you should definitely google a picture. Oh yeah, I also took a picture with Mickey Mouse at the park. It was pretty legit.

Next, we went to a tea house where we tried tea and they sold it to us. Tea is a big thing in Asia, so I guess that's where that came in. I don't really enjoy tea, but I could possibly get into it. Who knows? They also had this cool teaset with a dragon design on it that changed colors when you poured in tea. It was badass. At this point, I started feeling super tired and a little faint. It wasn't as extreme, but later that day, we would have to walk a really long distance.

After tea, we headed over to this medicine place. Once again, another show and sell place. They even had "doctors" who would give you a free check up and prescirbe you medicine to take. I decided to go because I figured I should try whatever they suggest for being faint all the time. They said I had liver problems (wtf?) and I ended up getting some pills to improve it.

Next, we had to walk across the street to the Forbidden City. It's basically a city preserved inside of Beijing. In the past, it was the government center and the home of the emperors and stuff. It is gigantic. Like... word scan't even begin to describe how huge this city is. 980 buildings. I'm surprised people don't get lost in there... or maybe they do. It was like a maze to maneuver around. It was really impressive though and it was cool to see all of the different buildings, rooms and artifacts of the past. The buildings were also huge and ornate. It took forever to walk around just a small section of it and finally it was time to go.

That's when all hell broke loose. The bus couldn't come pick us up outside of the palace, so we basically had to walk to dinner. Well, rain clouds were starting to gather and it was only a matter of time before it would rain. We went outside the Forbidden City and saw the iconic Mao portrait on the outside of the wall of the exit and took a restroom break. It started raining in the middle of the break so we went down into the subways to cross the street. When we got out, the rain had stopped and we were at Tiananmen Square. the famous square where many protests were held. Minutes later, it started raining again. This time was even worse. We had to wait in a little open building that I guess was a security room because it had the x-ray machine. We were there for what seemed like forever and the rain didn't let up, so we decided we might as well just go in the rain because it was pointless to wait. We all grouped up under umbrellas and crossed the street to wait under another building. This time, there were people selling umbrellas for the ones who didn't have any. My mom decided to get 2 for $20. Well, the person we gave the money to was selling 1 for $15. But we didn't know that, so we were like "2! 2!" But she didn't give us two and then started saying god knows what. Then she totally went crazy and started yelling at us and we were like dude, wtf. We ended up getting one and $5 back and buying another umbrella from another lady for $10. Then, we crossed the street again and walked all the way to the restaurant in the rain.

After that, we went shopping on this street, but it kind of failed because of all the rain. We finally were on our way home and it shouldn't have taken more than a few minutes because it was literally down the street. However, the streets were flooded like crazy. I didn't think the rain was that bad, but cars were literally stuck in the water and people were walking in water that was up to their knees. Luckily, we were on a big bus, so we didn't get stuck. The only bad thing was how bad and crazy the traffic was. It was literally how I imagined the end of the world to be like. Everyone being crazy in the streets. After about 2 or 3 hours, we reached our hotel. Afterwards, I saw how bad the flood was because there were trees broken all in the streets and people had died.

Day 4
We were supposed to fly to a different city today (what city? I still have no idea.), but because of the storm, the original flight was cancelled. Our tour people decided to book a different flight later that day. We ended up spending the majority of the day waiting at the airport for the flight, only to find out that that flight got cancelled too. We ended up going back to the hotel and planned on trying again tomorrow. I went to this little shopping center by the hotel and got a shirt, and then went to the other one and got another shirt and some food. When I was buying the shirt, the lady kept on saying something and I had no idea what she was talking about. I gave her my money, but she wouldn't take it and then eventually, she just took it and gave me change. When I went to pay for the food, literally everyone in China was waiting in the lines because the store was about to close. By the time I went to the hotel, I was delirious, tired, and I don't think I was even all there. One of the elevators didn't go past the third floor and another one was broken. (The same elevator I rode and it got stuck for about five minutes.) There was only one elevator to take everyone up and down the hotel. I ended up laughing histerically while in the elevator because of everything that had happened, and everyone stared at me. Haters gonna hate.

Ok, this post is long enough! I'll do one more after this to wrap everything up!

xxxjohnny.

Johnny & The Little Chinese Commies (Part 1)

Location: Outside Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Time: 7:02 PM
Date: June 29th

Ni hao, China!

Ok, not really. Since my last post, I have already arrived and departed from China. So obviously, I survived!! If you've been keeping up with the blog, you'll know that I've been feeling faint all the time and I was scared that I would faint in China or something worse, but everything went fine! China was AMAZING!!!!!! I spent seven days there and every day was crazy for their own individual reasons. Since, there will be a lot to talk about, I'll split it into 2-3 posts, just so you guys won't get bogged down with 53924235 paragraphs to read.

Day 1
We left to go to the airport at the crack of my butt. I think it was around 4 or 5. I just know it was REALLY early and for some reason, the tour company always goes to the airport 2 hours before the flight. Drain. On the way there, I pretty much knocked out the whole way. When we got there, It was around evening and the first thing we did was drive to dinner. This was my first time seeing Beijing. It was freaking amazing! Unlike Vietnam, China had a bunch of people driving cars and a LOT of nice, big buildings. Even bigger than the ones in Thailand. They were obviously very rich and developed, being a superpower nation and all. It was like driving around Atlanta or New York City... except with Chinese people.

After dinner, we attended an acrobats show. Apparently, this is one of the more popular shows that they have in China. The acrobats show was mindblowing. They had people doing things that I didn't even think was possible. People were rolling around in tiny hoops, lifting people up on their chins, etc... And then the ending had this giant sphere of doom come out and a guy drove his motorcycle in. That wasn't all. One by one, people went into the sphere until about six of them were driving around without hitting eachother. When I first went into the theatre, I was starting to get a little faint and I knew what would happen next. It was exactly how I felt the first time at the Ladyboy show in Thailand. I didn't freak out this time and thought rationally instead of alarming everyone, so I went into the bathroom for a bit and just relaxed in a stall until I calmed down and felt better, which apparently worked. I felt fine the rest of the day. After that, we went to our hotel room.

Day 2
I had no idea what the schedule was like for this trip because no one told me, so, wherever we went was a surprise to me. You can imagine the look on my face when I realized the first place we would go to was the Great Wall. I mean, I knew we would go there at some point, but I didn't realize it would be so soon! I'm 100% sure everyone knows what the Great Wall is, so I won't go into details besides saying it's one of the most famous landmarks on Earth. The section we went to was located near Beijing. I really didn't know what to expect. I mean besides it being a great wall. From pictures and what I imagined, I figured it was a straight wall that people would walk on top of. Well, I didn't think that it would just be 1,000 stair steps. Literally. The steps were so steep and there were so many steps that I felt like I was being tortured. It was hilarious though because there were hundreds of people everywhere on this narrow path on the wall and people were sweating, panting, sitting down, about to pass out, etc. It was quite the work out. I climbed to one of the little watchtowers or whatever and went back down. It was definitely exhausting, but hey, now I can say I climbed the Great Wall!

Now, Asian tours are weird... Well, I don't exactly know if they do this on other tours, but I'll just limit it to the asian ones for now, but apparently, they like to stop at the randomest places and shop, but it's not just shopping. First, we'll go to to some place and they'll show us a little exhibit or museum. Then, they'll take us into a room and do a little lecture or something before they bring out their goods and try selling them. After the Great Wall, we went to a jade place since jade is such a big thing in China. I believe it was the Jade Carving Center. They talked a lot about jade, how it's made, blah blah blah. I didn't really pay attention because I don't understand people who speak Vietnamese with an accent. At the end, we went to the shop area and I ended up with a nice black bracelet that was cheap!

Next, we went to the Ming Dynasty Tombs which contains the tombs of 13 emperors. The only tomb to have been excavated was the one we visited, The Dingling Tomb. It was really interesting to see this aspect of ancient China. The buildings were all intact and so was the tomb. We had to go underground to see it, but it was breathtaking. Although some of the things were replicas, it was so cool to see how it was set up and how grand it was. It's definitely something worth visiting if you are touring Beijing.

Next, we visited the Summer Palace, which consists of several palaces and gardens. This place was stunningly beautiful. It was originally built sometimes in the 1700s, and was renovated and rebuilt throughout the years. It was also the summer resort of some of Empress. It was so pretty and fun to see all of the different gardens and architecture and buildings. Definitely another important to place to visit if you're in Beijing. There's also this huge lake beside it that covers most of the area. That was pretty much all for the first full day in China.

So, I already started writing day 3 and I realized that this post would be super, super, super long if I wrote it all down, so, I'll save it for the next post!

xxxjohnny.